lucy24 - 10:13 am on Jan 19, 2013 (gmt 0)

You've got to stop double-clicking :)

I am sorry but don't see any change except putting them nicely with a line space between every condition.

Yup. That's all there is to see. When your htaccess grows fatter and the rules get more complicated, those spaces will make a big difference. Not to the server, but to you.

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} ^popular=$1
RewriteRule ^venue \.php$ /venue/%1? [R=301,L]
This seems circular.

Nothing has been captured, so what do $1 and %1 refer to?

If you search this Forum you will find a piece of boilerplate on the redirect-to-rewrite two-step. I think that is what you're trying to do here.