Wow guys. In Wigan (my home town) they seem to suffer similar problems, but generally the most difficult thing is apathy from the audience. There's two guys in Wigan called Lupine Promotions and due to their hard work, we've had pretty much EVERY breakthrough Indie act for two years (Arctic Monkeys, Libertines, Babyshambles, Dead 60s, Jamie T, the list goes on), but when the crowd get there they stand by the bar at the back until the DJ comes on and they can have a dance.
The cheek there is that 3 months down the line, when said act has made it and the DJ is playing their tunes, the same apathetic no-hopers are asking for the guy back. It's a real shame. Thank god I live in Liverpool!!!!!
DaN
PS. Only ever gigged the Charlotte in Leicester and despite the very difficult sound engineer I had a reasonable amount of fun in front of a reasonable amount of people (we did have management and were touring though!!)