I'm confused. The original post talked about "folk conventions" and "folk conferences", which is something **much** different than your average folk club. It sounded to me like the OP is talking about something like Folk Alliance that might be in a hotel or retreat center.

At which point, you're dealing with a whole different set of costs. Hotel function space costs a lot -- it can be thousands of dollars a day just for the ballrooms and other breakout rooms. Add on hospitality suites, food functions (many hotels offer breaks on the function space if you schedule banquets), tech costs (stage & equipment rental), plus all of the travel, room, and per diem costs if you have headliners. It's a lot of money. And if you only have a couple of hundred people to spread it over -- yeah, the registration fee is going to be a few hundred.

(I've worked on science fiction conventions. So I know what costs go into them...)

-- Gary