I wonder whether these are the same people someone else mentioned who stay away from the club on guest nights.

In some cases, yes! In my limited experience (I only help run 1 folk club) there are people who are not interested in coming when there is a guest on. These are generaly

1. Those who only want to perform
2. Those who cannot (or will not) pay the price when a guest is on and
3. Those who like the more relaxed atmosphere of a singers night

I would never say if they are right or wrong - Just different from the 'core' who attend whatever is happening.

There is also the converse - Those who will only attend guest nights. Again there may be number of reasons for this but the one I hear most often is that they prefer a 'professional' performance by a paid guest.

We did toy with the idea singers nights featuring some of the more 'professional' floor singers doing extended spots, but decided it would be too difficult. Can you imagine the upset it would cause if someone who believed they should get an extended spot didn't? We had to settle on a policy of full guest night or full singers night for the peace of the club!

There are, however, some people that are regular singers at our club that we have also booked as guests. These tend to be those who have already had some sucess performing guest spots at other clubs or who occasionaly come to our place as floor singers as well - Coming back to Dick's point that the pro's and semi-pro's can occasionaly do small clubs a favour by appearing as floor singers. We do not expect it by any means but we always welcome such a visit:-)

Cheers

DeG