I firmly believe that there are bands (and callers) that should not be booked. In another thread we are discussing what we should do about inappropriate dancers and the consensus seems to be that the 'good of the community' trumps the rights of the individuals. In the same way, I believe that the 'good of the community' trumps the right of particular performers to perform. I certainly hope that I will have the ability to recognize when I should no longer be on stage calling and if I fail to do this then I hope that bookers will have the good sense to stop booking me! When I took over as the band booker for the Friday Night dance at Glen Echo 4 years ago there was no such thing as a 'Do not book list'. However, when I consulted previous band bookers, or looked at historic data for attendances, it became apparent that there were bands that probably should not be booked. I therefore instigated a categorization of bands as follows: * Can be booked twice a year (demand to play is so high we had to have a limit) * Can be booked three times in 2 years * Can be booked once a year * Can be booked once in 2 years * Do not book The category a band belonged to was influenced by * My personal view (I was the band booker) * Frequent conversations that I had at the interval and along the line with other dancers * Board input at board meetings * More recently by using on-line survey input from dancers and past/present board members There were 2 broad routes to the 'Do not book' section * Poor performance (too slow, too fast, out of tune, no drive, inappropriate choice of tune, boring.... ) * Unreliability (arrived late, difficult to deal with, eg didn't respond to emails, turned up with a different lineup to that agreed etc) However, if you have a 'Do not book' category you also need a way for a band to get out of that category. I did not automatically inform a band that they had been placed in this category. However, if they asked why they were not being booked or asked to be booked, I then explained why I would not be booking them. I also explained that they could get off the 'Do not book' list by having at least 2 members of the Board (excluding me) see them perform elsewhere (preferably different events) and provide suitable references. I have no idea if my successor has continued this system (I am no longer booking the bands as my term on the board expired and I have also moved to Phoenix, AZ). Michael Barraclough www.michaelbarraclough.com I On Mon, 2014-04-28 at 10:37 -0700, Perry Shafran wrote: