£450 is VERY top end for a solo club artist - less then a dozen will charge that much, because very few clubs can afford it (less than 50?). Average for most jobbing solo artists is between £1 and 300 (MU rate is £114 for less that 300 people, by the way). Lots of clubs can't even afford £100. And fuel costs may be more than £100 if there's a long drive involved - (and for arts centres and village halls, publicity and printing may come to more than £100 on top). Don't forget to allow for time spent administering the business, rehearsing, teching instruments, and other costs like insurance and websites.

Also it depends who is asking. Do you run a regular gig Lowden? If not you may be quoted high to allow for getting messed about. There are plenty of duos, even, who'll work for £150 or less, so please don't write off all 'artists' from just two quotes.

There are enough people around already who already have a completely erroneous idea of what 'folk' artists make - and think we're all shysters, crooks and thieving knaves without comments like that!

Thank you.

Tom