Snail, I am reluctant to get too drawn into this discussion, which has been repeated many times in other threads. However I would like to come back on a couple of points.

It is nonsense to say that you don't have authority over what happens at your club - among friends or not. The club is organising the event, and is perfectly entitled to control what goes on, and what is and isn't acceptable or appropriate. It is up to the club to decide who will be invited to perform.

Whether and how you choose to exercise that authority is a different matter. Your club clearly takes a laissez-faire approach, and I don't doubt that it works for your club. However it should be obvious that it won't work for all - I won't name names, but I have been in plenty where the standard of performance was pretty low - unacceptably poor, as far as I am concerned.

The comment about my professional friends was not that they were embarrassed about their audience - they come from a folk background and know what to expect. The point was that people from outside the folk scene were turning up to folk clubs and paying money to hear good music, only to have to sit through some very amateurish performances from the floorsingers. That does not convey a good impression of folk music or of folk clubs. IMO, clubs should exercise some quality control over floorspots on guest nights, and those singers who don't come up to scratch can get their chance at singers nights.

It should have been perfectly obvious that my final comment was about such clubs which allow poor singers to perform, not about your own club.