Gareth's question 2. Does charging women considerable amounts to attend a function while letting men in for free (or cheaply) amount to selling women's services to men? This seems like a vile suggestion but there are several points here worth noting. One is that for men it can amount to a cheap score. Another is that if there is a need for two different entry costs, isn't it a good question precisely what is on offer to whom?

Some types of function may attract more of one sex than the other but with a big-dollar function sold as an opportunity for people to meet members of the opposite sex, how on earth does an event organiser land in such a pickle that they need to offer free entry to men just to get them to attend? Numerous singles event organisers have done this is the past. If their charging practices are reasonable it should never come to that point. Having reached it once, it would be unforgivable to do the same thing again because the organiser knows that there is a problem.

Gareth's question 1. Does higher attendance charges in order to keep the 'riff-raff' out of singles groups actually filter out 'down-market' people or rather does it tend to filter 'suckers' in? What exactly is 'riff-raff'?