Has anyone else experienced this ridiculous scenario recently ?
Yesterday evening a small group of us gathered in a small country village pub near Aylesbury, Bucks. for a regular monthly folk music session that has taken place there for at least the last 10 years. This is a typical informal session where we play invariably traditional tunes together and to learn, for our own enjoyment. However on this occasion the landlady requested that we didn't play as she had recently had a visitation from someone representing the PRS asking her if live - or indeed 'canned' music - was played in her pub, because if so she would have to pay an annual fee (to the PRS I assume ?). Thinking this was a PEL related issue she said "no" - but did mention our monthly acoustic folk session. The PRS rep. then promptly asked for details of when this occured and asked for a playlist!! She is now very twitchy about doing something 'wrong' so we ended up moving onto another pub in the vicinity - keeping an eye out for any PRS 'police' following us !

What on earth is going on ? - as if we didn't have enough to contend with, with all the PEL rumblings etc.   I can understand the PRS taking issue and wanting a 'cut' for the original composing artist from bands playing in big town centre pubs who charge an entrance fee to watch them perform. But targetting small, village country pub sessions where the only clientele are usually the folkies themselves, is ridiculous. Apart from the fact that we usually only play "traditional" tunes anyway which are so old the composers name is no longer known.
Sorry about the long rant, but I am a little cross about this !
Sally