"Then. of course, they have to pay for it but I don't think £10 - £15 a throw is at all unreasonable for the privilege of seeing a good, headline professional act."

To charge £10-£15 a head would be a huge leap of faith for me at KFFC. We charge £5 for club night s £20 for weekends.... and I guess put on acts who are in this price league. I think this fits with our remit in the overall network. We do put on some established acts but we also see ourselves as fulfilling the need to provide a platform for less well established but excellent acts.

This means we lose money on some events and make money in other ways [on bar, the good old raffle and food (at weekend events)] that subsidise these. I've now built up a healthy fighting fund that will allow us to take further risks in both directions..... bigger names who demand a bigger guarantee and unknowns where we need to subsidise.

We have a max capacity of about 80 (venue is licensed for 104 but by the time you get the stage etc in....). I do have limited tiime (sorry Diane!) full time job and our own gigging to take care of, hence running a monthly rather than weekly night.

I'm not sure we should be trying to push our prices up much..... this would force us into a position of having to only book those who have already "made it" . There are plenty of other succesful venues doing this (those listed above + Twickfolk, Faldingworth Live! etc). I'm convinced we already occupy a useful niche.... but would invite comments and challenges on this view.

Back to work........