Knock on wood (I don't want to jinx things) we have done pretty well at Richmond Folk Music in developing and keeping a following. We started small in a venue that only seated 40 at the most. Towards the end of the first year we were usually filling that. It helped that, as a result of booking a wonderful man who sang Yiddish folk songs we ended up with several members of a local synagogue who came to the Yiddish concert, then were intrigued and started sampling some of the other concerts. When we lost that venue, the synagogue offered us the use of their space for a minimal fee. That brought even more synagogue members in, and they promote the concerts in their newsletters. Some Irish acts got the local Irish American Society interested, and many of them sample other types of concerts as well. We don't do any advertising that we have to pay for, but we do utilize as many free calendar listings as possible and have developed an e-mail list. I make it a point to let special interest groups know when we have something of interest to them. We've also been lucky in that all the acts we've booked have been very good and entertaining, as well as informative. We do a mix of local and touring performers but none of them are big folk "names". But I work pretty hard on putting up a good description of the act on the website, and send out three e-mails prior to the concert in which I give quite a bit of information about what to expect (and of course I make it sound very interesting - which it usually is anyway). We only book traditional folk (I don't want to get into a debate as to what that is, OK?) but basically it means no singer/songwriters although if people do mostly traditional and want to throw in some of their own compositions or a few covers that is acceptable as long as it is in the traditional style. We charge $12.00 for advance tickets, $15.00 at the door and that includes coffee and cookies or cake. We make it a point to promote the concert as an alternative for older folks - who really don't have that many options! Most of our audience is 50 plus, and they really appreciate the idea of being able to have a nice dinner then come out to the concert for dessert, coffee and music. We cross promote with another concert series in Richmond that mostly books singer songwriters - I announce their upcoming concerts and they put our flyers out at theirs - and we've had some 'cross fertilization' so that works all around.

Another good thing that has happened, especially since we moved to the synagogue, is that the audience is starting to get to know one another and they socialize over the refreshments. It helps that the synagogue space is very, very comfortable, inviting, good acoustics, parking, and handicapped accessible...we've been lucky!