Myra Melford has been one of America's leading jazz pianists for decades. I saw her live at Fasching in Stockholm one freezing night in February this year. When she first took the stage, there were 2 people in the audience (my mate and I). By the end of the gig, I suppose there were about 30 people there.
I felt embarrassed for her.

To see Think Floyd in a 2000 capacity theatre in Nottingham. They were great though.

At a club above the Winter Gardens in Morecambe in about 1996. The l;ocal listings rag called it 'a night out not to be missed'; all but 6 of the local population ignored their advice.

At the Musician in Leicester. They have what I consider to be one of the best and most adventurous booking policies in this country, yet many of the gigs I go to have only 20 - 40 people attending. It's a crying shame but more power to their elbow for carrying on regardless.
Have a look at the link for February's line up - weird and wonderful!

http://www.themusicianpub.co.uk/listings_feb11.html

edit: On the other hand, the small "crowds" means you are getting a great view of some fantastic artists.

Bristol Poly 1981, must have been their first UK tour, about 30 people in attendance.

The Town & Country Club, Kentish Town, probably 1985. Capacity around 2,000 +. There may have been as many as 50 of us. This didn't bother Curtis, professional to his toes; he didn't care about those who didn't turn up. We had and he played a wonderful gig for us. As wayfarer notes above, you get a great view with such a small crowd.

The paucity of the crowd must have been down to the promoter not getting it properly advertised, because Curtis returned there not that long after (maybe 9 months). There hadn't been anything in the charts to enhance his reputation or profile, yet this time the venue must have been at least half full.

...in 1989 I found myself in a Manchester cabaret venue where Stan "The Germans" Boardman was performing to 4 people.

once played the Princess Charlotte in Leicester to absolutely no-one. We got excited when a punter appeared halfway through but it turned out he just wanted to use the toilets.

We still did the 'new one' as an 'encore' though.

...when you take your seat in a row with nobody else in it. John Mayall at the Rainbow about 1976. Barely a hundred people all scattered around the theatre. The sound echoed around the hall and the applause sounded so thin. You could have hunted bear in the balcony.

Aztec Camera at the Bierkeller in Bristol in 1998 - about 30 people there, although to be fair they were all huge fns and had a great time as they were all right at the front, and Roddy Frame abandoned his usual set, played a load of covers and requests.

Television at Bristol Academy in 2003 I think, the Wednesday before Glastonbury weekend, about 40/50 people turned up.

Special mention has to also go to a band first on at a gig at Camden Falcon. They came all the way from Glasgow and played to no-one except their manager sitting on a plastic chair in the middle of the room.

Mick Hanly one night when only myself and three others turned up. It was a small venue but he would have expected to fill it. I remember thinking it was awful that someone so talented could travel so far to be met by four faces.
It's a mighty long way down rock n roll.
In contrast, Mick was quids in when Hal Ketchum covered "Past the Point Of Rescue". Here's a clip of them performing that song together in a venue very similar to the one that contained me and those other three guys:

Birmingham Town Hall in the 70's. I had never walked out of a gig before. This one was poorly attended from the off but the quarter full Hall gradually lost 90 percent of the audience as one by one they left being unable to endure the aimless meandering on offer. I wasn't enjoying it but didn't want to go - my mates were having none of it - 'come on Steve this is shit'. They were not wrong. Strangely I think I would probably like them now.

If ever there was physical evidence that a Band was past its sell-by date, this was it. Bearing in mind that this band was one of the major draws in the early 90s, plenty of sell-out tours, huge productions, they played to less than 50 people at University of Greenwich (the old Thames Poly). Seemed to come as a big shock to them. Curtains, after that.

Amersham Arms, New Cross - very early (Jan?) 1989 when they couldn't get arrested south of Altrincham - I counted 27 people.

They were great though - Brown in sneeringly arrogant top form

...I recall a Belfast upstairs-room pub gig in the late '90s, when I was still writing about music, at the Front Page (for those who know Belfast), which was forever trying to become a 'scene' for music.

The band were a (very good) local country-rock act. They'd been booked in by a rotund local promoter, a man of wry, hangdog disposition who was/is the salt of the earth but who seems have an indefatigable opposite-of-Midas touch when it comes to luck (he once booked Run DMC into the Ulster Hall, coinciding with the very week they had a UK No.1, and STILL lost his shirt on it somehow).

I turn up. Rotund man is by the bar. Band are about to start. We exchange smalltalk with the barmaid - wondering if anyone else will turn up, me trying to be positive. (Yes, times have changed there!) The phone rings. Barmaid answers it, the pair of us listen in. It's like a comedy sketch. It's clearly someone enquiring if there's live music on tonight.

'Well?' says promoter.

'It was a guy asking about the music,' says barmaid. Pauses. 'Says he'll think about it...'

'Great,' says promoter, as a black cloud descends, 'a loser, a hack and a guy who might come along later...'

He didn't.

Fast Eddie Clarke's band played the Odeon (as it will forever be called) in about 1982. I'd say there were about 30 or so of us in the stalls. We'd actually bought tickets for the circle but there were so few of us they lumped us all together downstairs. Reminded me of the time I went to see The Jerk at the cinema.
Alone.
Totally.
No other bugger in the place.
Happy New Year, y'all. I'll do my best to make it to the London drinks on the 7th January.

Jackie was upstairs in the Academy 3 in a shirt held together by safety pins.
There were about 8 of us in there. Jackie was great, but the weird thing was that one bloke spent THE ENTIRE GIG taking photos of Jackie from a distance that was bordering upon "intrusive". One or two, you can understand, but it all got a bit..weird. I remember exchanging worried glances with some of the other punters.
Jackie, bless him, remained the soul of professionalism.
I've also seen Sarah McLachlan at the same venue. A star across the pond, she was relatively unknown to the UK and the (small) audience seemed to consist of ex-pat Canadians.
She was in a right old grump.

are festival sets by acts who would surely have drawn a crowd elsewhere, but were let down by injudicious booking and/or scheduling (e.g. wrong set time, wrong stage or simply wrong band for the festival's target crowd).

The worst for me was probably Alex Gopher's 4pm Dance Tent set at Hop Farm last summer - the decidedly less-than-bangin' start time and the apparent lack of '90s dance heads among the as-diverse-as-a-crowd-in-deepest-Kent-can-be audience ensured that no more than about 10 people were actively watching/dancing at any one time (granted, there were more people than that in the tent itself, but most of them were en route to the bar...)

Went to see the lovely Roisin Murphy a few years ago at the Leeds O2 (the old Town & Country Club).
I'd say it holds about 2000 people and I reckon there were about 100 people at the gig. We all just crowded round the stage and made the best of it...

Me, my brother and his mate went to a comedy club in New York to get the full wisecrackin' Seinfeld-type experience. Oh dear. It was Open mic night and new comedians came on, one after the other, to do a five minute routine for the benefit the audience, i.e. just the 3 of us.

Just about all of them had very little prepared material and were looking to just get laughs from the "so...where are you from?" conversation with the closest table to the stage. We ended up taking it in turns.

15 people at the prince in melb
oliver mtukudzi of zimbabwe -20 people
tchico tchicaya of the then Zaire - 10 people

have you spotted a theme here?

probably more a case of wrong venue than smallest audience but the time I felt most crestfallen was Fatima Mansions at the Astoria '91 or '92.

I remember a bunch of us all wishing to retire to the balcony only to find the whole thing closed as there wasn't a big enough crowd.
At the time I did think the Fatima Mansions were going to be huge and that everyone felt the same. Obviously not...

Leeds Poly, 1977. We only did this show because it was promoted by Harvey Goldsmith and he begged us to do it (on a percentage deal). Peter had an LP out produced by Freddie Mercury & Roy Thomas Baker.

I seem to recall Harvey and Freddie's names were as large as Peter's on the tour posters we flyposted. We managed to get upto 50 people in a hall seated for 600, but only by going around the halls of residences and shoving free tickets under the doors.

We had the same problem when Elton John's backing band toured under the name China. Only this time we resorted to telling everyone that Elton "might" make a surprise appearance on the night. He didn't.

Both these artists performed at a festival I go to in Sweden in different, recent years.

Maria McKee had maybe 10 or 20 watching her. Most of those at the festival were too young and she hadn't done much for years that was well known so not suprising really, but still sad.

Johnny Marr was playing with The Cribs, who he is now a member of. Again maybe 20 people watched and some of these soon drifted away. The others in the band seemed to get a bit stroppy and frustated but Johnny looked happy enough, having seen it all before perhaps. It was a bit bizarre to be in a car park watching this with so few, most of whom, I suspect, had no clue as to his significance and greatness as the former Smiths hitmaker.

Nottingham Royal Concert Hall on 18th August 1995 with Matthew Fisher on organ. Approx* 150 people in a hall with 2000 seats, thanks to some late/ poor advertising.

We had seats in row G but moved to the front row after no-one else arrived after the support act and were treated to a blisetring set including Shine on Brightly and A Salty Dog. Half way through the set Gary Brooker decided that the band should get to know the audience and asked us to start introducing ourselves.. starting with myself in A1.

* My work colleague and i have recounted the story of this gig on many occasions and the figure has on some tellings dropped below 100. Still we both agree that a good 75% were only there to hear A Whiter Shade of Pale.

I saw her at The Social in Nottingham a couple of years ago and there were about 20-30 there. A really good gig, mind.

and been one of half a dozen or so punters, but no notable music gigs.

Comedy however brings 2 to mind straight away, Alex Horne as reported thus http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/alex-horne and a few weeks earlier it was Richard Herring at Clacton-on-Sea in a theatre that must have held 700-800 people performing to about 50 of us who abandoned numbered seats and huddled around the front of the stage.

played a set to about four people, after the organisers of the first Britcar 24 Hour race over-estimated the size of the likely crowd by about 50,000 (about 30 people paid to get in).

To his credit, he and the band completed the set. I was watching from the press-room, too embarrassed to get any nearer.

X-Factor winner playing in an empty coffee shop near you...

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/tv/x_factor/3267144/Steve-B...

...my girlfriend and I, turned up to see Eddie Izzard at Bristol's Colston Hall. However, it transpired that we were a week early.

saw him in king tuts, glasgow in 2005. There were about 18 people there. Made me glad I'd dragged along my brother, sister and her boyfriend.
He was brilliant though and the sparse crowd ensured that when he asked for requests for an encore he heard me ask for 'Fathering' which he proceeded to play to devastating effect. Wonderful night

I saw Joey Beltram DJing in the Waterfront in Norwich in 1996. There must have been about 10 people there. It was embarrassing for us all quite frankly.

Of a tale told agin himself by Howard Jones. In 1987 he played a vast hall in Switzerland to an audience of 7. He said, 'The least I could do was introduce myself to each of them personally'.
I once saw Elvis Costello & Steve Nieve play Cardff's not huge St David's Hall to a crowd that, charitably, was outnumbered by seats three to one. A cracking 3 hour set ended with Costello inviting everyone down to the front for a sans-mike encore.

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Of a tale told agin himself by Howard Jones. In 1987 he played a vast hall in Switzerland to an audience of 7. He said, 'The least I could do was introduce myself to each of them personally'.
I once saw Elvis Costello & Steve Nieve play Cardff's not huge St David's Hall to a crowd that, charitably, was outnumbered by seats three to one. A cracking 3 hour set ended with Costello inviting everyone down to the front for a sans-mike encore.

It was at Manchester Roadhouse on a Sunday night in March 2003. Bush Hall was sold out so I plodded up to Manchester to see them in the half full, tiny venue.

Also in Manchester Joe Jackson on the Night n Day II Tour. The Apollo had waves of empty seats and he's certainly never played venues that big since (that I know of).

Back to the Apollo in Nov 86 and Killing Joke toured the follow up to Night Time. It wasn't even half full down stairs and the balcony must've been shut.

Paul Smith (of Maximo Park) at Bush Hall 01/12/10. Sold out but half full, probably due to snow rather than the qualtiy of his album.

Midnight Oil at NEC Birmingham 1989 promoting Blue Sky Mine, never seen so much of a venue screened off.

Noisettes, Proud Galleries Camden 09/12/2008. Launch night to showcase songs for 2nd album. Pathetic turnout.

and 10 of them had driven form interstate to see him

sydney sometime in the late 90s

full nashville band too

and he played like it was a full house -professional

I myself am a newcomer to Fairport and accept that Glasgow probably isny a natural home for their very English folkrockery, but if there were more than 30 people in the theatre I must have missed them.

To their credit they delivered a cracking show. I went out and bought their back catalogue on the strength of it (or the well known ones anyway...)

Oh, and comedian Phil Cool supported them with his acoustic stylings. Wasn't half bad either.

but solo at Aldershot- must have been a 20 people there, indeed he got off the stage at one point and was playing guitar in the "audience"

Also, the Fergal-less Undertones in a bar in Barcelona, no one was in the audience at start time, we got offered a free drink if we came into watch them!

A friend went to their comeback tour at the adventurously-booked 1,000-capacity Mean Fiddler in Charing Cross Road about four years ago. He counted 42 people. They saved their hit (Can You Dig It) for the encore.
I saw Ruarri Joseph at T In The Park play to 12 people and Emma Pollock of The Delgados do a solo show at V Festival to about 30.
Oh, and Sleeper's final ever gig at Brixton Academy (4,500-capacity) had about 500 people, tops.

Went to see Moose at the Riverside in Newcastle. There were about a dozen people there, my friends and I were three of them. Pity because the band were ace. I'd seen them a few times before then (and since) and there was always a good crowd. The lack of punters was blamed on the student population being away for the summer. We all got a free tshirt and a mention in the NME review.

The other one was Fabulous, also at the Riv. The three of us again and two girls, who the singer was trying to chat up. Nobody else at all. We didn't stay...