Conrad,

What do *you* not understand about the difference between putting on local sessions with local people and putting on bigger events, or events featuring musicans skilled/ well known enough to draw large numbers of people?

For something like a pub session, yes, "all" you need to do is contact musicians and coordinate a location (ensuring the location owner is amenable, that perfoming licenses are obtained and paid for, the premises are insured, etc) then go there and play.

No problem in a pub, or in a private house with a couple of dozen people, or even on the street with something like "Commando Trad".

In fact, I'm going to such an event on 11th September at a friend's smallholding, where we'll have a hog roast (cooking one of his own pigs) and 20 or 30 people playing and singing...in a wooded area, well away from residences that may complain of noise etc.

But organising a whole "festival" with many hundreds of attendees is a whole diferent ball game. Yes, you can roll up with a couple of flat-bed tucks in a field to make a stage (but the trucks are at *someone's* cost, and the field owner may want rent). It'll be unlicensed and uninsured, but hell, there's a long history of "raves" in the UK where people turn up in a field and play without licenses, permission, or insurance. But almost always they've charged for it...if only to cover the cost of paying the fines and replacing their PA when the police confiscate it having turned up in response to complaints from the landowner or nearby residences. And there's the cost of cleaning up the area, etc.

As others have said, commercially successful bands have sometimes put on free events...but that's "free at the point of use" not "free of costs to set up".

And it was hardly "jet set muscicians" for *this* temporary (and loss-making) "fat cat" when the band he put on arrived with all 5 and all their kit crammed into an ancient Volvo. They were going to sleep on my floor, too, but we had an accommodation crisis that weekend with children unexpectedly returning home, so they slept in a local budget hotel that barely had beds, never mind a pool. They had 2 rooms between 5 at £24 for one room and £29 for the other. The only merchandising done was the sale of their own CDs at a cheaper price than they could be bought on line or in shops. I know what they charge, and I know how many gigs they do....quite frankly that band, and most of ther other good but not internationally famous artistes I know "on the circuit" would be better off drawing Job Seekers' Allowance (aka Unemployment Benefit) looking at their net income once costs have been taken into account.

And of course they need to travel. Even a band like Tom Williams and the Boat, with a very strong local following in West Kent and Sussex, would find audiences getting fed up with seeing them if they were constantly only playing in a 20 mile radius of home. It's called "exposure fatigue".

There's a TINY percentage of performers and entrepreneurs who make significant income from the music. Most just get by. The two biggest local entrepreneurs in this area live very modestly in small homes and drive battered old vehicles. They probably make losses on 50% of the events they put on.

This picture you have of "jet-setting" artistes demanding pools and not deigning to mingle with their audiences is just another example of the massive chip on your shoulder and bears no relation to the reality of the situation for 95% of artistes and entrepreneurs...probably nearer 99% in the case of folk artistes!!!

I can see a number of reasons why your folk "friends" may have dumped you, and none of them are related to politics. I'm dumping you now....bye.................