In the UK is the number of paying gigs has now dropped below a critical level* as more clubs become singers-only or have guests on fewer nights of the year, while the number of people keen to perform at a professional level (in terms of qulity even if not of price) is increasing rapidly.

(*If you assume you can only play a club once every three years, and that only 75% are going to like what you do, you can only get about 100 club gigs a year. At £80-180, given the other costs involved, that's just not sustainable - you have to look elsewhere, and do other things)

If we all demanded MU rates, even fewer clubs would have guests.

Actually I'm not sure that club rates are dramatically affected by semi-pro deals, but festival rates absolutely are. A festival day is long and tough, workshops drain you and main stage gigs are the hardest of all because multiple act concerts carry the highest risk of technical problems and challenges in terms of turning an audience in a limited time slot (against other, very different performers), but also carry the largest bum-count in the folk world. Yet pecause so many see a festival as a holiday with expenses you're sometimes expected to perform for LESS than a club fee. (and I'm usually in the big print at the top, by the way).

BobL has made the comment we usually hear at some point in this debate - forgetting that he probably wouldn't have a single folk song in his head to hum if it wasn't for the pros that have worked hard through the years to find, arrange or write brilliant songs, and then struggled to get them out there, for everyone else to call their own. That's folk, folks.