Many strange things with live music.

I have recently returned to playing in a rock/ish band after a break of 35 years and have played something like 10 gigs this year at various venues around York and most of the bands that I've met at gigs have all commented on the difficulty of dragging people out for an evening. Some of the bands have a good following locally but the audience is inevitably made up of friends who can be cajoled to come along. A 'Battle of the Bands' round we played in was probably the best attended with perhaps 80 people in the room. When I think about it from my end I don't go out a lot to many live acts unless I or one of my family or friends is playing unless it's someone very special.

But there are some strange things.

I went to an acoustic night in Helmsley (actually in Kirkbymoorside) and the hall was pretty packed. What I found strange was that I didn't recognise anyone there. It was a paid for evening and some of the performers were folky but I had never seen any of the audience at any of the folk clubs around where I live. I found it strange that there seem to be different local audiences that don't interact.

We don't advertise at our singaround because it is reasonably well attended and has a limited capacity. It works by word of mouth and that seems to suit at present. If we need to get more people it would not be too hard to increase its presence by various means. We are perhaps lucky that most people who come return - either regularly or infrequently - and that maintains a level of attendance.

This may be treading too close to some of the arguments on other threads, but I do think that new blood is incredibly important and this includes people coming to listen. Some of the people that I play with don't want it to change and grow but most of the places that I have been to that struggle are marked by seeing the same (often) small band of stalwarts gradually dwindle. Each time we have new blood in it just seems to fire people along a bit and make all the existing people who go try just that bit harder and usually leads to better evenings.

I'm lucky that the people who come regularly to our thing are friendly and welcoming and encourage newcomers to get involved because I think without the influx of new blood even the most enjoyable groups of people sometimes go through times where 'everything gets a bit samey' and that's when people tend to drift and try new places or get a bit bored and come less.