I lean toward recording the material at a good conservative level and letting the audience clip. It usually doesn't sound bad on them since it is only transient claps that end up too high and they don't sound much different when clipping. It gets a lot harder (and harder to decide) at jazz shows where they clap for the solos in the middle of songs. I've come around to letting that clapping clip then fixing it with isotope rx in post if compression doesn't even it out.