I don't run a club but for what it's worth I'd say there is currently a slow but steady national shift in the UK away from guest/concert formats towards singers-only formats. Certainly I often hear about clubs getting larger audiences on singers nights than guest nights, and also of clubs reducing or even closing down their guest nights. Its one of the main reasons I'm giving up trying to work as a professional guest - I just can't get enough gigs to pay the bills (well I might if I did millions of freebies to get into the clubs which don't know me and in front of the punters who choose not to come to my gigs because they don't know me, but then I'd have no bills, as I'd have no home or family)!

I've mentioned this in the past and been jumped on as though I'd said this is a bad thing. It's not a bad thing for folk music or for folk-loving communities. It's just not great for people like me who, erroneously perhaps, hoped to fund a dream life-style, and it remains to be seen what it'll mean for festivals and concert (i.e. non-Folk Club folky gigs) circuit.

At the moment, touring guests make a big contribution to the folk scene in terms of making new material, and spreading material around (through gigs and CDs), helping to drive up standards through solid performances, workshops, teaching and general advice.

There are plenty of even more highly skilled people who do not want to tour, of course, but these will have a lesser impact and value nationally if they choose to remain local. And if the touring circuit ceases to be viable for new faces (as I personally believe it has now become) there must be an eventual stagnation and decline. The current stars (who can still make the circuit work thanks to reputations built in better times) will keep it going for a while yet, but eventually even they must retire.

Maybe the younger generation will, as some predict, start up more folk clubs, and refine the new crop of open mics to something of more value to the folk repertoire and philosophy, but it might take a while and we might see some big changes in the interim.

Colin Irwin was talking at the AFO conference about the way he feels the folk movement developed a bunker mentality in the 80s and 90s (I wasn't there having been one of those who moved away for various reasons), with different groups going to ground, taking their values and philosophies with them. I believe that much of the conflict we see here and elsewhere is down to the way these separated groups found themselves meeting up again in the naughties through the internet and blossoming festival scene, and finding they now had very different and conflicting values.

But understanding did grow and the variety was healthy. For a while back there the future looked very good (which is why I decided to dive in when I did).

I'm not sure what the future holds now. The BBC, according to Ian Anderson in the same seminar) may be starting to recognise that folk is great TV after all, and if so we could see growth in the top echelons of the business and in the 'supported' sectors (new faces with industry backing of one type or another). And the growth at the participation end of the scale looks set to continue too, which must be good.

But the lonely journeyman in his campervan may soon become extinct, and it remains to be seen what impact, if any, this may have on the whole set-up.

Tom