If you go to an event in a bar then you're expected to buy a drink, I agree. If someone can't afford the cask beers at the Wharf Rat (mostly around $5 a pint) they can get a Bud or Coors or something similar for $3.50. I should have thought that most people could afford $3.50 once a fortnight to enjoy folk music - if they can't that's too bad, but then they've probably got more important things to worry about.

Conrad, your difficulty is not with the prices, its the amount you expect to consume. Even in the cheap bars you're so keen on you must be spending between $10 and $20 in an evening on beer. For that, you could go to the music session and have three or four pints, which most people could get by on, and maybe at that modest level of consumption you'll find that cask beers won't make you ill. But you're not really interested in music, are you, otherwise you'd do that, or else you'd start up these sessions and festivals you're so keen to encourage others to do for you.

As for me, I enjoy a few beers but when I go out to play music at my local session I never have more than a pint and a half, since I'm driving. Of course, those are proper-sized pints, not the puny measures you have there. If I'm gigging I often have only water, as I don't want to doze off while driving home at 2am.