Don--

Our folk society had a chance to meet with a representative from the
Maryland Commission on Human Rights, which has enforcement responsibilities in Maryland. It was reassuring to find out the details from the experts, and to realize that in our state at least, enforcement isn't likely to be so hard-assed as to prevent house concerts and other home gatherings of the society. They're simply not going to waste their time and energy worrying about every little gathering in somebody's living room, alienating the populace in the process.

And you can let friends you haven't met yet know about the events. You can always use a formulation like: "Hosts A and B invite members of the society and their guests to their home to hear Performer C. Suggested minimum donation $N."

There's at least one other folk presenter in the community that decided not to actively publicize house concerts of others for fear of losing its government arts grants, but deprival of those grants is really the only realtively easy-to-invoke mechanism available to enforce accessibility.

--Charlie Baum