Going back to folk club manners - Being noisy during someone elses performance has to be one of the most rude things to do. There are many ways to do it - talk, eat crisps, go in or out, mobile phones etc. The other one that annoys me, as doorman, is people who just walk in without paying! They are often regulars who know very well that they should pay and seem to get annoyed when I have to ask them for the money! What is that all about?

Poor performance is of course as discourteous as anything the audience does and, at the risk of getting shot down in flames as I have been before, I find some peoples performances can be downright embarasing. I always explain to anyone new to the club on a singers night what the singers night is all about. I am more than happy to explain that we can get anything from Martin Carthys guitar to Les Dawsons piano! I was ridiculed for this by another mudcat member who now seems to believe that Swinton Folk Club is the worst in the world but we have just celebrated our 25th anniversary at the same venue so I guess we must be doing something right!

On a guest night there are soem floor singers I would not dream of putting on and, bearing in mind that on a guest night we cannot get more than two or three support singers on, it has never been a problem. Jim is quite right - poor performers can destroy a club. I think we may have got round it by making sure they do not appear on high profile evenings and, where they are encouraged to perform on a singers night, peoples expectations are always set correctly.

Cheers

Dave