"Even if we still had some traditional singers around appearing on a good stage in a good setting with a knowlegeable compere (few of those around) with or without alcohol you would still have a problem finding an audience. It just isn't there."

I think there could be if it could be promoted. It would have to start small and grow.
Alcohol precludes youngsters from participation. Folk music is in its tradition often a family affair. Songs are generated through the aural fashion, lullabys, sketches of songs, even ballads handed down by parents to children.

My contention has always been that people who are exposed to folk music have to own it. One way, the way I've found, is to teach it through songs, instrumental accompaniment on folk instruments or a cappella. If people can use it in their own lives, it becomes appreciated when others perform it.

The reason it endures regardless of its mass popularity is that it contains human values and emotions that we can all identify with. The themes are those that when released from the popular music idea which is it has to be liked because it's popular, is a tautology that can be broken by educating the public.

Ewan and Peggy had an effect on introducing people to folk music who were not fans,   as did the Kingston Trio in America. Those popularized performers grew out of an interest in folk music by small groups of people.

For me, folk music is experiential. I had to learn to listen to it to finally enjoy and understand it. My mind had to slow down to a different time when technology had not robbed people of their leisure and created problems that it was intended to fix. The fast cars, cell phones, computerized data processing world can find relief in a simpler pace, a human transmission of emotions on a less manufactured scale. We can be trained to enjoy and listen to a song sung without excessive production values or basic accompaniment. Trying to define folk music is the old blind man with the elephant. Parts of it mean different things to different people. However, the main point for me is that once I hear it, it engenders a sympathetic vibration and it defines itself. I can be absorbed in a story/song/ballad with many verses done a cappella or with musical tasteful accompaniment that doesn't require a light show, dry ice or loud electronic noise. It's kind of like learning to enjoy the taste of a good organic apple instead of a meal laced with preservatives, chemicals and artificial flavoring.

I like simple and subtle rather than complex and crude in music. Folk music does that for me.

Many classical or musically sophisticated composers have agreed with me. Bartok, Vaughan Williams, Beethoven....you name it.