I run the monthly Brighton Acoustic Session with Stuart Reed at the Lord Nelson in Trafalgar Street, Brighton. Stuart handles bookings and finances, and I get the room arranged, sort out the order of the floor spots and guest bits, and MC the evening. We always try and accommodate everyone who wants a floor spot, and rarely fail except on nights when the place is rammed. So, here's what we do:

One singer, one song, unless there happens to be a dearth of floor singers, in which case Stuart or myself or other floor singers will get a couple to fill in between the guest sessions. Duos, trios, quartets, etc. - two songs and no more.

Here's what I dislike:

Floor singers who plead for "just two very short songs" - they never are.

Floor singers who roll two songs together into one - this is taking the piss, in my view.

Floor singers who, knowing that time is short, sing an interminable song well beyond the allotted time.

Singer/songwriters whose songs are filled with the same choruses repeated over and over again, interspersed with noodling, uninteresting guitar work, and which drone on for ever.

Luckily, very few of our regulars fall into any of these categories, I'm happy to say, but you can never predict who's going to turn up. The only person I would never allow on the floor again - ever - is a not very good but showy performer who, while playing, turned to a woman in the audience and said, "Can you do this?" Which earned him, in my view, the award of Twat Of The Year.