I don't think the problem is confined to "folk clubs" The problem is getting people off their backsides to live music gigs on a week-day evening. People work! They commute!

As far as I know concert venues and concert artists are doing ok - when you've gone to the trouble of buying a ticket, you make the effort and go out. Even so, concerts on a weekday evening are rare. Yet several folks clubs of my acquaintance seem to be pulling in audiences of 30, 50, 70 for guest nights.

Live music in pubs, be it folk, rock, whatever, is horrendously unpredictable. Sometimes you get a good crowd and sometimes you get the sagebrush nights, like TDL experienced on Monday - very sorry to hear it, Sue.

It takes a huge amount of effort to build up a following for a regular music offering and almost nothing to destroy it. A few unfortunate clashes with football matches; some bad choices of guest artist; a change of landlord; a change in the bloody weather...a "r" in the month, I dunno! Nor do I know the answer - except maybe to stop thinking of folk music as a poor relation of other forms of music and move to Saturday night clubs. There was a great turn-out at Lewes last Saturday - though they did have cracking good guests (Kerr/Fagan/Harbron)!

There seems to me a lot of b******s spouted by certain individuals on Mudcat about "traddies" (presumably the opposite of "traddie" is "trendy", the Folk Police being a special branch of the Fashion Police who decree such things as female singers appearing on TV talent shows should be young, curvy and plastered in make-up.)

I'm not going in to the "what is folk music" debate, except to say that anyone who encourages such ridiculous snobbery, whether "pro" or "anti" has completely missed the point.

I think artists too have to take some responsibility for marketing, and not leave it all in the hands of the poor old club organisers. Look to Show of Hands for a lesson in viral marketing. Their following is built on working dam' hard at keeping in touch with their fans, building a following, building a guaranteed audience. With folk music, the audience is ALWAYS at least as important as the performers.