Tom - we're stuck with a thread which includes the words 'Folk Clubs' and 'dying'.

Despite welcome qualifications on what is meant by 'folk club' here, i'ts good to remind contributors who may have dropped in after only a brief look at what's gone before (It's a Long Thread now!) that there are various sorts of club.   As you infer, Singers' Clubs are not vulnerable in the same way as concert clubs during this time of slashed incomes and surging unemployment. Much of what's being said has, indeed, less weight in the Singers' Club context. Nevertheless many contibutors are taking the Thread title to mean all Folk Clubs and much of what is being said does relate to all Folk.

Because of the terminology problem above I've always tried to use different terms for the Concert Club and the Singers' Club. The problem is that the thread title here does not.

On your own style - if you have support and a full gig list for a comedy + folk type performance, if that's what you do - fine. But it's not my cup of tea - I prefer songs at a folk club rather than a comedy show with songs combined. I've seen too much of that.

And..... I'll add here I am easily bored by amazing musicianship for the sake of it (ie. it's used as the virtue of the performer rather than as the tool to convey folk songs). I see an here an advantage of a Singers' Club/Song Club - you don't generally get the flash musicians ego tripping with their microsecond fingers. The top quality musicians who come along are also mature artists who are with us to entain with folksong rather than Wow us with technical skill.   

I must add here the last guests we booked; for they match my expectation of folk club performers perfectly.

They went from one song to the next very professionally with a brief but nevertheless interesting introduction. They put a lot of skill and energy into their performance and they obviously enjoyed every song they sang. They were almost totally vocal: no tiresome tuning as a background to a comedy routine; and they had intellgent, original arrangements of both traditional and newer "Folk genre" songs. Perhaps more artists like our recent guests and less folk comedians might help stop Concert/guest clubs dying!

Ian Fyvie