That is a strange one Jerry. You'd think a St Andrew's Night event would be more of a night for general Scottish songs rather than a Burns Night. It is like going along to a festival of Shakespeare and instead plays by Tom Stoppard and Alan Bennet are showing. I might be a bit of a curmudgeon but I organise our club's Burns Night and it isn't too formal at all - but the stipulation is that it must be Burnsian or at least have some connection to Burns. If someone said they wanted to do 500 Miles, or Annie Laurie or whatever then I'd recommend tell them if they wanted to have a spot they'd need to learn a Burns song. The other stuff can be done at normal club nights!

We used to have guest spots on our Burns Nights (before I was involved in organising). Non paid gigs but just invited folks along from a nearby club just for an extended spot at the end of other turns. Sing for your dinner type of thing. Was great sometimes and I remember one really memorable one with Kenny Speirs and Judy Dinning. However the last time we had anyone it was a localish duo who did two Burns songs then gave us a C&W routine. Folks were much too polite to make a fuss but after that we decided to keep it in house.