At one club I know, the problem seemed to be that the committee responsible for booking guests virtually never visited the club themselves, and never consulted anybody else about what acts they might have wanted. They would then book acts we'd never heard of and didn't tell us anything about them. The best attandances were for a few regular acts that came every year, we knew what we were getting with them.

Perhaps if the club's performers were asked "who do you want us to book?" they might turn up.