Here we go again! The question of door fees or floor fees; so many threads on Mudcat seem to degenerate into this kind of debate. If you don't pay but want to sing, it should be 'first come, first go'; if you are charged, then by hook or by crook you damwell will sing - you've bought your plot of floor for the evening. And if any overrated guest usurps your go you should demand double at the next singaround. If the landlord is robbing you for some antechamber of a room when his bar is sparse, blow him out and move on.
             I'd definitely pay if it guaranteed me a decent spot, but then again I'd have to pay the audience to sit still and listen because no-one's heard of me. That's not my fault, though. There are divers reasons for this:
                              Not born in the right bed;
                              Not married to the right (famous) person;
                              Not knowing the right people;
                              Not having money to buy my way in;
                              Not having the right kind of Daddy.
               On one side there are people like me willing to pay to sing so that their efforts are not wasted and their existence will have been brought to someone's attention; and on the other side you have a person like Fyvie Mc.Sporran who won't pay on principle, but who goes out of his way blowing his own trumpet as to which famous folkie he's been a few yards down the road from whilst recording brass bands.
                It's a folky old world!!!
                              
                                                                      Catawauling Beefeater