GUEST,Tom Bliss

(Incidentally, while I'm interrogating the database - of that 201, 33 have since closed - about a third of 101 clubs which I've recorded as closed since 2001, and there are about another 75 which did to book guests now but no longer do)

The bare facts aren't very informative without knowing the reasons behind them. Why did those clubs close? Loss of audience? Loss of venue? Loss of organisers? Inability to attract performers? Why did those clubs stop booking guests? Were the participants more interested in performing to each other or were the organisers scared of the financial risk of giving guarrantees to performers?

Lowden Jameswright

Are you bored with predictable guest lists? - Yes

Would you care to elaborate on that? Difficult without naming names, I know. Tom talks of long return times between bookings (we generally reckon 18 months to 2 years) so it doesn't sound as if clubs are just cycling through the same old safe names.