>>If we only booked big names we could get a lot more audience..... but what's the fun in that!
<<

Depends which side of the fence you are looking from Paul.

In other words from a performer/organiser point of view

or

from and audience/organiser point of view.

I fall into the second category and see it from a person in the audience point of view. That upsets some performers, but you win some lose some. As they say, you can't please everybody.

At the end of the day, its about covering your costs, whichever route you take.

Like you we have a group of people that work very hard to provide what we hope is a very good quality of entertainment for our audience.
At this moment in time, our core audience keeps coming back (which we do not take for granted) and that is great. As its a concert style venue, then if the audience dropped below what would be our breakeven point and that became a regular thing, then we would have to stop.

Its totally different to a singaround, but we have several of very good ones in the area that cover that side. Gainsborough being my favourite, as well as Louth.

There are also quite a few sessions in the area. As I am not a musician, then it is not my style. However, I do sometimes put the occasional session on, and faldingworth Live pay for that.

The great thing is that we can all survive together and try to help each other. None of us want to lose money.

At the end of the day, you sets your stall out and do your very best to make it work. Nobody can ask more from you.