Are folk clubs becoming jug addicts?

Pete Willow looks at the use of jug collections in the financial management of folk clubs. Are they a threat to the livelihood of professional guest artists of a boost for grass roots music-making culture?

It could be a jug, a mug, a hat or a chamber pot – it doesn’t matter which receptacle is used, the jug collection is increasingly intrinsic to folk club economics. Many organisers are forsaking the admission charge by passing around the begging bowl and folk club guests are starting to get used to it.

The phenomenon follows the basic exchange system that has kept buskers and churches going for years. Audiences are admitted free but are asked to contribute cash to cover the fee of the guest act. There’s no fixed price and no raffle prize. This brings a new dimension to the art of the MC – persuading people to fork out as much as possible.

There are numerous tactics. Glassware or a clear plastic pitcher can be circulated very publicly so that everyone can see how much you’re putting in. There’s no getting away with loose change, not even pound coins when others are visibly allowing their fivers and tenners to flutter into the pot. And we all know that coins are far too noisy anyway – paper money is far less anti-social.

There are no exemptions for floor singers. They are encouraged to chip in along with everyone else. After all, they are also gaining the benefit of the guest’s performance and they might be guests themselves one day, with any luck. You don’t even have to be in the club room – punters in the bar next door are also prevailed on to support the folk club that’s bringing much needed income to the local boozer.

Jug collections can be quite effective. My own club, Willow & Tool’s Music Parlour, takes place in a very small room but still often manages to muster up eighty or ninety pounds on a night, sometimes over a hundred (note to future guests – that is not a guarantee!). Admittedly this is nowhere near the desired performance fee of many artists on the folk club circuit but it is more than many small admissions-charging clubs make at the door and does not put the venue at risk of closing in debt.

Of course, it is up to the artist on whether they would accept a booking on such terms. For those who depend on paid gigs for a living, it is not ideal or indeed desirable to gamble on the size and generosity of audiences. If all folk clubs adopted this approach, it would hit the pocket of many full-time professional guests; in order to pay the bills they would need to rely more on merchandising, royalties and bookings at other types of venue, from arts centres to festivals.

There need to be other factors to encourage a guest act accept the jug arrangement – it’s a fun place to play, a great audience, well-crafted beer, the host is a good mate, the venue is en route to another bigger show being played the following night, or the club needs supporting as part of the grass roots culture that keeps live music alive in informal and intimate surroundings. And of course it’s an opportunity to sell CDs.

Aspiring, up-and-coming talent may well see jug-collection bookings as an effective means of building up exposure but it’s surprising how many established and top-calibre artists also agree to appear for whatever the club can afford.

Jug collections do not rest easily with the music-as-commodity approach that guest-booking venues have traditionally adopted whereby folk clubs pay set fees, often specified in printed contracts, and are thus run as (frequently loss-making) businesses. It shifts the focus away from what you get as a return on your investment to the more community-orientated ethos of people paying what they feel they can afford. It departs from the conventional marketing model of the music industry while, ironically, adopting a ‘free market’ approach that effectively puts more power in the hands of the consumers.

Except we don’t call audiences ‘consumers’ – just people who love live music and are happy to pitch in financially to keep it going.