How many song books to you bring to a show?

[Lonman]

Originally Posted by Bi-Polar Bear

I didn't mean to say it had anything to do with how good you are. I'm speaking of perception... and people perceive you to a great extent by your presentation. Now if you and your gear and books look like a million dollars and your show sucks... that's a different story. But if all things are equal, appearance is key in my 18 year experience.

Only 17 years in the game here on the pro side & I still don't know if i'd agree with this - will agree that you can have the best of everything & still have a crappy show, but you can also have a crap system & if you know what you're doing, make it sound tolerable to decent as well to make a nice sounding show.
I get this statement all the time from people - I go to so & so show & they have over 50K (or more) songs & you seem to have a much better selection. Then they go on to explain that the other books have like 5 duplicates of most songs (if not more on many). This is when I go on to explain & try to educate them that companies like this will go on the perception that bigger is better & will list everything they have even if includes listing duplicates & bad quality versions to make their book appear bigger & better when in fact they probably actually have less of what people actually want to sing. Have even had hosts that come in wondering where I got certain songs because they can't get them (even illegally).
A bigger book doesn't always mean better selection.