JAJ, I find myself a bit bewildered by your reaction. All I was suggesting was that, in any project where you have a team of volunteers, you divide the necessary jobs up. As many other posters have suggested, the fact of a person's status as a volunteer shouldn't be a factor in how well they carry out the task assigned to them. I took from the wording of your statement that you were proposing that the size of the club, or the fact that those running it were volunteers, was often used as an excuse for not doing things well. I certainly wasn't referring to you or any organisation you're associated with.

You go on to completely misrepresent my view of volunteers. The traditional and folk music community is built on the shoulders of hundreds of volunteers from pipe band tutors, to board and committee members, to club and festival organisers and they have my unreserved support, especially where they do an outstanding job. I can think of one example which I'm closely involved with, the Scottish Traditional Boat Festival in Portsoy, which is run entirely by volunteers, from fund-raising and administration to health and safety and stewarding. It is superbly run and attracts 16-17000 people per day. Another example. Edinburgh Youth Gaitherin (which I'm also involved with - as a volunteer) has an excellent web-site set up and maintained by a volunteer. Scots Music Group the same. So I'll yield to no one in my admiration for what volunteers do for our music community and by extension the wider community. As my colleague from south of the border, Steve Heap, is fond of saying, 'professionalism is judged by your state of mind, not the state of your bank balance.'

Sorry, I was having a bad day and over reacted a bit when I thought you were "having a go".

Thanks for clarifying your views. As I replied to BGPR, I don't disagree that voluteers should also take a professional approach and that the important duties should be covered. One of the problems I noticed though is that there are often insufficient people who are prepared to volunteer for organisations and those who do aren't always of the right calibre, possess the correct skills, or have the time or commitment required.
That's not necessarily their fault, however, and organisations often can't afford the luxury of being too selective in who they recruit. There's the possibility of "training", of course, but this also requires time and personnel too.

From my own experience, I feel its probably easier to recruit volunteers to assist during a specific event.....say a weekend festival, one off concert etc but much more difficult when it's a full time or long term commitment. Of course, it also depends how attractive a particular organisation is to potential volunteers. Also, how they are presently being organised is also a significant factor. People might say "I don't want to get involved with these lot" or, alternatively, "They seem to be managing fine already".

I don't believe that any of the organisations that I am presently involved with (or any I have been) are perfect by any means. Although it would be inappropriate of me to list their shortcomings here, I freely admit that there's always room for improvement.

Of course, every local authority in Scotland has a Volunteer Centre within its boundary. Edinburgh and Glasgow have particularly well resourced ones. Among other things, they provide a 'bureau' service to organisations needing volunteers and to individuals seeking volunteering opportunities.

It is well worth checking out if they can help. They can also provide excellent training and advice regarding the recruitment and management of volunteers.

BGPR - if what you say is true, by not naming and shaming you're doing us all a disservice.

Dave - great video. It's funny, but in a chillingly painful and accurate way of many 'promoters' I've come across over the years.

"They can also provide excellent training and advice regarding the recruitment and management of volunteers."

Do they know much about folk music there? :-)

Fair enough, but our constitution at Edinburgh Folk Club requires that the committee is recruited from our membership although I don't suppose it would be too much of an issue if a non member offered to sell raffle tickets or similar. However, covering the night doesn't usually present too much of a problem although sometimes things can go more or less smoothly than normal but that's the side of things which the other members and visitors actually see. Much of the work occurs outwith the actual concert.

But, JAJ, there are many roles that could be delegated to volunteers, particularly those with specific skills (event management, IT, marketing/promotion), and directed/supervised by a board member.

Sorry, I didn't intend to hijack the thread.

Oh, and sometimes, not knowing about folk music might be an advantage. :¬D

OK, thanks Jim. It's worth thinking about.

blues x man - by not rising to your bait I am hopefully showing a bit of integrity.
Everyone has different experiences in differing circumstances. My experience here was disappointing but others might find some way to work with these "volunteers" and, in any case, I would hope they will maybe learn something from our parting of the ways.

BGPR - asking to be made aware of such sharks (if you'll pardon the pun) is hardly what I would call baiting.

By the way, are you still writing reviews of acts you do PR for?

I think you are "baiting" Blues man. In fact, I think your a master at it !!
I know, sometimes I kill myself!

Haven't you got some weeding to be getting on with?

As someone who has played clubs all over Scotland since 1974, I have never played for a fixed fee in any band other than a ceilidh band.

Playing clubs was always on a door percentage 80-90 %.

Diggery Venn were a band that played ~100 club gigs a year, in the 70's 80s, and any week that was quiet went and did a floor spot, (not playing support :) ).

We were all in full time jobs and played music 3-4 nights a week

We played in a state of mutual trust with the club organisers at that time. They knew we were a part time local band, and we were happy to play for a percentage so that part of our fee could be put towards the fee of full time artists. We had full houses, just like the Martin Carthys, but that was part of the collective support group that the clubs were in those days.

We were not unique and probably as much as 50% of the bands then were just like us.

In those days there were 80 or so clubs within driving distance of Glasgow, and we only needed accomodation north of Dundee and south of the Borders.

These days there are less clubs, more full time bands, and smaller audiences in most clubs.

Mabye we need to get back to the balance of acts where not everyone is a full timer.

There was no loss of quality when half the acts were not pros.

These days mabye we are venues and promoters and not clubs

John McC: If you run music and it's held in a venue then you have to promote the gig or eventually lose your venue.

You are being simplistic. You are happy to subsidise those who are full time. Some folk are prepared to do that and others are not.

Floor spot performers are very welcome, and enjoyed, at our sessions/socials, as are visiting full timers and superb professionals and we have had them all.

A support act is different as imho they are pre-arranged, of an acceptable standard, provide a quality contrast or complement to the main act and if arranged early enough, in the advertising of the gig. And in our club they get good treatment and either expenses or a fee. OUr audience is aware they will see another act than the main booked act and that we think they will enjoy them i.e. they are of an acceptable standard.

Nowadays even support/floor spots have MySpace/You Tube so an organiser can judge whether they merit an audience. Many of our acts are booked based on MySpace performance. Some others trade on earned reputation. Others on word of mouth. All of these work.

Much of this comes down to interpretation of the words but this is my interpretation.
Clearly this means it is daft to turn up at our club expecting or even hoping for a floor spot!
Things have indded changed greatly as you point out. I am trying to guess why you think accommodation would be given nowadays if you were going north of Dundee from Glasgow. We'd not consider it. That would come into the realms of daft riders in contracts for me.
Still the travelling for those working the next day is a big consideration in taking gigs. Different for those who are touring.

I don't think I am being simple in what I say.

My point was, and I'm sure you did understand it, was that many artists today, play a floor spot, and that turns up on their my space as being "support to Dick Gahghan, Acoustic Fairport Convention, MIck West Band, ect. ect, ect. In addition spots at "Open Mike" nights become gigs.

On the accomodation front, we never asked for accomodation, it was generally offered, beyond the areas I described, and often it was offered, but generally declined, in the areas in between. This was not "put me up in a hotel", but was the offer of a sleeping bag on someone's floor.

I have had the pleasure of providing accomodation free of charge for Johnny Sylvo, Catherine Craig among others playing the Star Club over the years.

The only time I can remember staying in a hotel was at the many Folk Festivals we were booked for the weekend, (we were never a band for droping in for one day to play a single gig and then move on), and for some strange reason Arbroath Folk Club who included accomodation at the hotel the club was in as part of the fee.

To answer your first point, I ment we were beconing Venues and Promoters, at the expense of being the supportive, like minded, not totally focused on the amount of money we can stuff in our pockets, idealists we used to be.

Spare a thought for Mark E. Smith of The Fall. Last night, at Studio 24 in Edinburgh, he waltzed off the stage after 30 minutes - he'd spent most of his brief time onstage mumbling his hatred of the audience. It was a disaster, like most Fall gigs, but remember people paid £25 a skull to be there. Smith got paid.

Anyway, it made me think about performers who fail to play for the entire stage time they have been booked/ paid for. According to a few promoters I talked to, if a band/ act/ performer has played four, full songs/ tunes, then the audience isn't entitled to their money back - even if the performer then leaves the stage and doesn't come back. This says a lot, especially when I think back to the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays who used to play their shortest tunes at The Venue many moons ago before getting into a fight or just leaving. Regardless, because they had actually played four tunes, it didn't matter - they had to be paid, and punters weren't entitled to their money back, either.

In short, has any promoter/ punter ever been at a gig that didn't reach a proper conclusion for one reason or another? Did you get your money back?

I went to Eric Burdon during the Jazz Festival last year and the gig was abandoned due to the fire alarm going off twice. We still managed about half an hour though.

However, we did get a refund after the Jazz Fest and QH came to an arrangement.

The answer to the original question is very simple. YES!
The responsibility to pay the band rests with the hirer, who should have researched the band and their music sufficeintly prior to booking. The hirer has responsibility for providing the correct musical entertainment to match the venue/occassion. Given that the hirer is then satisfied that the band meet the essential criteria for the booking it should not be blamed on the band if gate receipts are low.

Door receipts may not necessarily be low, of course.

Simon's first post....

"Obviously there are a lot of circumstances where audiences don't turn up but on a good night when folks do turn out should this be the case?"

As I stated, there may be very good reasons why a club or venue may occasionally book a band whom they might not be able to afford.

It could be as a sort of "loss leader" scenario to attract more interest to a club...hopefully, these punters may return.
Or as a treat for the regulars which could be subsidised from previous surpluses..... I would argue that these can and should be used positively and /or for artistic reasons and not only to "bale out" a gig which turns out to be a flop.

There would be other circumstances too, of course, but not every gig has to make a profit especially for an organisation such as a folk club where aside from covering necessary overheads all the money made should go back into the music anyway. Generally though, the majority would be organised on the basis that they were, at least, expected to break even.