So yes it can be done. I do it several times a year. But....around here most places charge much much more than retail for drinks and food especially when there is entertainment.

Why is food and drink so expensive at venues?
Because no one looks into it and insists that profit taking be kept to a reasonable level.
End result- fewer people can afford to attend and performers reach a smaller audience.

If the performers do not get the extra money then where does the money go? Everyone from producer of food and drink to distributer to providers of other services that is the food chain are taking too large a cut or someone is.

It has been demonstrated here that performers are unwilling or find it unnecessary to look into cost and profit taking therefore they seem to be partly responsible for the growing costs themselves.

I am not in any way saying that performers and venue operators do not deserve to make money I am saying that when people make too much money the market is under stress and people who should have access are locked out via economic segregation.

Only the "good people" get in and any system that lets this go unchecked is not doing right by the potential audience or the tradition.

Yes it can be fixed but one has to look into profit taking at all levels and work to keep it reasonable.

If one lowers costs one can attract more people so give another session, expand. Somehow I dont think folkies are concerned with expanding or performing more often. But lowering costs will increase volume which will mean more profit in the long run as well as greater exposure of the music and tradition. So one wonders why there is so much resistance to downscaling festivals and monitoring profit taking?

Yes the market will try to do it but generally this happens catastrophically with venues going out of business as they and the food chain remain dedicated to unreasonable profit taking. This is why there are so few venues. Lower costs and profit taking, streamline, simplify and we could have many more venues and employ more artists.

Conrad