My estimate is that there are are 640,000 contemporary musicians in
the UK. This number includes everyone from 'bedroom' to established
artists. It excludes classical performers. The figure is derived from
magazine readership numbers and other sources.

My question is in two parts:

1) How many performing bands/artists are there in the UK? By this I
mean people or collectives that are rehearsing and performing in the
UK (active say in the last six months). Reference to some qualified
source or available research is required here.

2) What is the best/most complete source of band names and email
addresss/websites for bands/artists in the UK? For clarification I
want to be able to randomly select a large number of active
bands/artists for some particular research that I am planning on how
musicians are able to develop their careers (not to spam thousands of
people!).

Part 1 is my major interest area and would help me enourmously in my
research and is therefore the thing I will weight most heavily (80%)
for the best answer.

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Clarification of Question by josaka-ga on 07 Aug 2005 06:31 PDT

To clarify: I'm not seeking a 100% accurate answer to the number of
bands. What I would like is a number/s that is based on some level of
sound logic i.e. will stand up to some level of scrutiny.