From Personal Experience:

Essential Items for a Folk Club.

1) Dim Lighting (especialy for the performers) - so nobody can be tempted to actuallysing from crib sheets, and if the lighting is dim enough, the audience can't see the acts either. I spent quite some time in Theatre, and the First Rule of Stage Lighting says: If you can't be seen, you won't be heard. Candles in wine bottles are useful, they drip hot wax over tables and occassionally people, and with luck, or good planning can liven up a dull evening by setting fire to parts of the venue.

2) If you don't like dim lighting - then make the audience's eyes implode by going the other way.

3) The Committee: this self appointed body, usually drawn from the lesser talented who would not dare to show up others by actually performing themselves, place themselves in the best spots to seeing and hearing, talk loudly during the bits they don't like or can't understand, and generally give instrumentalists the benefit of their lack of expertise in intruments they don't play.

4) The Cloth Ear Sub-Comittee: this self appointed body surfaces from the cream of a large Committee, the rule is - empty vessels make most sound.

There are other essentials, but I have run out of time for the moment.

Robin