Well I got nothing but a warm welcome from the Jug when Manitas and I went in June, and that was with a restless bratling in tow as well!!

Mike, you have to learn that if you want your session to evolve, as all sessions must, you have to allow new people in. I have seen long standing sessions collapse almost overnight before now because one person was too vociferous in their disapproval of visitors. If all you want to do is play music then go join a band. If you want to play music with no audience then join the Ukelele Orchestra of G Britain (only 5 people turned up at Cecil Sharp's last Friday for them.... I felt so sorry for them...). And if your session doesn't evolve then it just becomes a practice night for the melodeon players. You will end up with a totally predictable session, where everyone knows what tune is coming next and in which order and people will get sick of it. This has happened so many times, where the same 8 - 10 musicians played regularly, and always the same tunes. Visitors were tollerated but new tunes weren't. In the end, visitors stopped coming to what was essentially a closed session and it died.

Remember that a pub is just that, a PUBLIC house, and only the Landlord or their staff can say who can and cannot come in. If you start laying down the law about visitors to YOUR local, then you should expect people to start avoiding you. Sooner or later, you will end up playing to yourself in an empty room.

LTS