Poetry venues and their cover/minimum charges--plus "closed" vs. "feature with open-mike" readings.

I've been following an interesting difference of opinions on L.A. poet/host Angel Perales' Facebook wall.

One thread concerns small venues such as coffeehouses and the amounts they choose to charge as either a cover or a food-and-drink-minimum.  To me, either amount should top out around $3.00; charging $5.00 for a food-and-drink-minimum, as one L.A. venue is apparently doing, is gilding the profit lily a bit too much.

[This isn't likely to happen in our current recession economy, but it would be nice if more coffeehouses/venues/hosts would spend money in weekly papers to advertise venues and poets in a manner befitting comedy and music clubs.]

The other topic: the pros and cons of the "closed" (usually meaning one or more "star" poets with no open mike allowed) Poetry Event vs. the more traditional open-mike-plus-feature(s) reading.

And, as has been stated on Angel's wall, there are some "closed" readings that feature subpar poets and open-mikes studded with genuine talent (thinking back to my early days on the scene when the Midnight Special Bookstore and Poetic License readings had a high--and artistically diverse--percentage of poets who "killed").

Unfortunately, there's the myth (which is sometimes reality) of Eminent Poets not wanting open mikes as a form of quality control/poetry eugenics.

And there's also a myth that "closed" and carefully booked readings may be necessary to attract nonpoets to come to poetry venues.

As G. Murray Thomas (a man who has played a large role in shaping/encouraging the scene we have today) stated on Angel's wall, nonpoets do come to the popular Da Poetry Lounge slam readings at the Greenaway Court Theatre on Fairfax.

But there's the question about how "nonpoets" are defined.

Do hosts/bookers prefer nonpoets (at nonslam readings) to be highly-refined "literati", with potential audience members of middle-and-lower-brow tastes and interests to be tacitly discouraged from attending?

To read the full discussion of the issues mentioned above, Angel's Facebook page can be found at:
http://www.facebook.com/Angel.Uriel.Perales

[UPDATE 8/31/11: G. Murray Thomas commented on the post above--
"When I talk about creating poetry events which appeal to non-poets, I am not talking about the literati. I'm talking about the average person going out for a night's entertainment (if you want to call them middle- or low-brow that's fine with me). I'm talking about shows which present poetry that average person can not only understand, but be entertained by. I'm talking about crowds similar to what you would find in an average club listening to bands."]


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