And yet, several times a year I still come up against the "we don't do downloads, send us paper copies/photos etc". Or "tell me your free dates, I cannot look at your gig list" (myself, I always check a club's published bookings before approaching them).

Surely the second of those is perfectly reasonable? It's quite a complicated process to work out when somebody's going to be available in one part of the country when all you've got to go on is a list of booked gigs half of which are in places you've never heard of. Can this performer make it to a gig in Borchester on Wednesday if they've done one in Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh on Monday and have another one booked for Tannochbrae on Friday? - only the performer can know. Better if they say up-front that they'll be based in the South Riding of Yorkshire in the last two weeks of April and have the following dates free: [...]