Hi Betsy, John, Tom and others,

I don't know if I can add much to this discussion, but it won't stop me trying.

We both run a club (KFFC), and my other half is an aspiring act (sometimes hindered by my banjo!) so I at least get a view of both sides of the equation.

The club is a monthly "concert" type club but with a singaround beforehand. We don't really have a booking policy but it is easier to get bums on seats if booking an established artist (though we wouldn't be able to afford/ I'm not prepared to take the personal financial risk of booking some of the big names mentioned above, at least not for a club night). I have been prepared to take some risks and book people who aren't established because I like what they do and think the audience will as well. This has just become a whole lot harder as our pub venue has shut and we now need to find additional money to pay village hall rental. I will have to be more conservative in the future with main guests. I'm exploring several alternative money raising schemes at present (on-line folk club is one, B & B for traveling audience provided by club regulars with a donation to club funds is another).

I do book (and usually pay expenses/ small fee [£20-£50 to anyone who travels any distance] to) either 1 or 2 support acts each month as well, which hopefully gives a "ladder" which aspiring acts can climb. But this level of fee certainly does not provide a living income to anyone.... it seems to me that, unfortunately, you have to be prepared/ able to heavily subsidise your attempts to establish yourself. We will be re-booking as main guests a number of the acts who have initially appeared as supports, where the audience reaction has been really positive.

Main act fees have varied between £50 (a special from a very nice established artist who was helping us get the club off the ground) and £200 (also a special from an extremely well known artist who was also helping us build up club funds). Usual fees paid are between £80 and £130 often done as a minimum guarantee against a door percentage.

Which leads me to the other side of the discussion. My other half's attempts to establish herself really started early last year with a round of finding as many opportunities to play in front of people as possible. Floorspots, singarounds, open mics.......whatever, with a few paid pub gigs (which actually we enjoy, the banjo is a great weapon for cutting through background noise!) and others which began to offset the cost. This has led to around 40 paid gigs (half in folk clubs, half festivals/ pubs/ others) this year with fees varying between £20 (towards the beginning of the year and booked last) & £200+. The bookings are fairly regional, with the majority (not all though) being in the Yorks/ Northeast. CD sales top this up as well.

It is tough though, we find if people have seen her they will book her (clearly not all, the world never works like that!) but get a very poor return if just a CD is sent.... if you can persuade bookers to look at YouTube, the chance of a booking goes up many fold. We do at least have empathy with the bookers (see KFFC rant above!), though it can be frustrating to say the least! So outside the north of England we will continue to look for any performance opportunity, paid or not and have faith that this investment will pay off (and if not at least it is all good fun!). We couldn't do this though, if I did not have a reasonable day job so that we can afford the petrol and the babysitters.

There you go, my input for what it is worth!

Paul