Dear LT

As a club organiser, I’m receiving more and more artists’ agents’ contracts that are clearly aimed at big concert halls and arts centres, and I’m having to use an unnecessary amount of my time (for which, of course, unlike the agents and the artists, I am not paid) crossing out clauses that a folk club cannot reasonably be expected to fulfil (lockable dressing rooms, meals before the gig, fresh fruit, hotel accommodation, free tickets for 10 hangers-on, and so on) and writing notes explaining that what I run is a folk club, and that we are unable to provide these things.

It would really not take that much effort on the part of the agent to draw up two different contracts – one to send to big commercial venues and one to send to folk clubs. That would not only save club organisers’ time: it would also save us a lot of irritation, and possibly avoid the loss of some gigs, as some organisers say they will not book artists from agents who send them ridiculously unsuitable contracts.

I get particularly irate about the frequent inclusion of a clause saying that, if I cancel the gig, say, two months before it, I will have to pay half the fee. In 35 years of running my club, I don’t think I have ever cancelled an artist. It would take an extreme occurrence, such as the pub burning down on the day of the gig, for me to do so – and I don’t see why I should pay in a situation such as that.

Many artists, however, have cancelled gigs at my club that have already been widely advertised, causing me a lot of extra work and often leaving me in a very difficult situation; sometimes this has been the result of something unavoidable, such as illness, but sometimes it has not: there have even been occasions when gigs have been cancelled at quite short notice simply because someone (usually the agent) has not got it together to organise enough of a tour, and hasn’t decided early enough that the tour wasn’t feasible. None of these people has ever offered the club financial compensation for this.

One more small point – many agents’ contracts ask for the telephone number of the venue for people to call for information. There are fairly few folk club venues where the staff of the pub (or whatever) are well informed about how the club runs, whether tickets are needed for particular nights, whether there is time for floor singers and so on; so the information number should almost always be the club organiser’s.

Sheila Miller
organiser, Cellar Upstairs folk club, London