Resources

All you need at your fingertips

Event organisers, musicians and performers, or anyone who wants some useful lowdown on the folk circuit in the CV postcode area – we hope this part of the CVFolk website offers something of practical use.

We’ll add links as and when something crops up that might be of value to support your existence as a folk aficionado. Contributions and/or suggestions for potentially valuable resources are welcome – email your ideas and we’ll follow them up..

1. Getting positive media coverage for your club

For starters, here’s an article by Pete Willow (former university lecturer in Journalism and PR), originally published by Folk21 and offering advice to folk event organisers on how to get some decent media coverage. This was based on a presentation to club organisers in the West Midlands, back in 2017 and proved to be a popular resource. Technology may have moved on, but the basic principles are the same if you want the local press and broadcast media to take notice of what’s happening at your venue.

Follow this link:

How To Get Journalists to Love Your Folk Club

and see if the advice works for you.

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2. Getting clubs to book your act

Looking for the venue most likely to book your act – and encouraging them to do so? Michael McEntee has some handy advice for artists sending out unsolicited requests for gigs – well worth taking on board as he is former owner of The Big Comfy Bookshop, a popular Coventry venue which used to stage many excellent nights of leading folk and acoustic musicians. Here’s the video link:

Seven tips on contacting a venue for a gig

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3. Experiences and issues for folk clubs in and around the CV postcode area

Report on the CVFolk Club Organisers’ Moot at the Temperance, Leamington 26/2/2023

CVFolk hosted a music-and-chat event for organisers of guest-booking folk clubs across the CV postcode district. This took place in the Temperance Café in Leamington and consisted of an afternoon of discussion and sharing ideas followed by an evening Performers Night with each club bringing along their resident or nominated act to take part. The evening show was open to the public and featured eleven acts performing for 15 minutes each.

The afternoon meeting – or ‘Moot’ as it came to be known – was largely informal and convivial rather than agenda-led.

Each of the delegates was invited to give a brief introduction of themselves and their venues and offer their experiences, tips or concerns for discussion. One aim of the meeting was for delegates to develop and share ideas on how to face the challenging times of post-lockdown recession, But its main purpose was to build on a collegiate and mutually supportive local folk circuit, see what we all have to offer, and to have a great time!

The consensus of feedback following the meeting appeared to be that these aims were achieved. The evening concert also proved to be a well-attended success!

CVFolk Co-ordinator, Pete Willow took notes during the meeting and the following report is based on these, alongside written comments submitted by some of the delegates subsequent to the event.

Click here to open the report (pdf file)

4. How to avoid being an offensive compere

and how to avoid being offended by a compere – some inclusive advice from Esperance folk.

This item was shared on Facebook following an artist’s complaint about the way she was introduced to her audience by a compere who was (shall we say?) somewhat ‘old school in his approach,. CVFolk offers it, not as advice on ‘how to do it’ but as something that folk performers and MCs might want to think about.