Thing is surely, lovely as it would be for all the musicians who want to make their living out of their art and earn £30K per year, if the market ain't there then it ain't there. A fee of £1200 only makes financial sense to an organiser if having booked that artist, they're going to pull in enough audience to make that much money and then a bit more. And while some organisers are maybe complacent about their audiences & advertising etc, plenty aren't and yet would still struggle to sell say 150 tickets at £15 each to cover artists fee plus attendant costs (venue, publicity, accomodation etc) even for a very well known artist with a following, let alone for a young five piece that nobody has heard of yet.

I think it is arrogant in the extreme for anybody at any age to effectively be saying 'I've decided to dedicate myself to my art and so you have to pay for it whether you actually like it or not'. From what I can see most artists don't do that, they say ' I am choosing to dedicate myself to my art and if you like it enough to think its a saleable comodity then let's come to a financial arrangement so that I can do it some more'.

I've read various of Dick Gaughan's posts on uk.music.folk on the situation you're talking about Diane and he has my every sympathy as a true professional soldiering on in a tough world. But I've never seen anything that suggests he would say he's not choosing to make his living that way.

I know plenty of people who do play on main stages at a festival near you who do not rely on their music as their main source of income, so it definitely isn't impossible to do both. And if somebody wants to get a folk music degree as part of their education then so be it but I agree with most of the people who have already posted who say in the long run it probably won't make much difference to a particular performer's career - if they're good & lucky they'll make it, if not they won't, regardless of a piece of paper.