Dave: I wouldnt expect anybody(local or not) to be happy if shunted a year later. I very specifically said thatit's no skin off the nose of a financial secure local with a day job to be shunted a month later or earlier. Obviously, I am only suggesting a flexibility all rund, so if you have to ask a performer to chamnge the date of their booking, you offer thwem an alternative very shortly after. That's what I mean by flexibility. In the exqample I quoted that I was fixing yesterday, I was talking about offering my local gig to a touring performer to make their tour viable, I shift my gig a month or two later; and in due course I'll get an axtra gig in Cork next time I need one. Everyone's happy, and the sum total of the transaction is that some people in England get the chance to see a fantastic band from Cork who haardly ever come over. It's a win win situation for everyone.
    Dave, say you booked the Boat Band for next February, and then got a phone call from Christy Moore saying he wants to come over and relive his youth playing a few Lancashire folk clubs. Surely you'd see the sense of ringing me up, and sayin "Greg, can I shunt you to March, I'd love to put Christy Moore on, and your February date is the only possible one for him". Now, surely any local act would be perfectly happy with that offer from you, and if they weren't, they should get out of folk music and try something else. We're all in it for the crack, as well as some of us making a living. Swings and roundabouts,, let's all take of each other. That's a good philosophy, isn't it?