Punters go to betting shops and frequent ladies of the night don't they?

Well, as often as I can, which isn't much these days...

Gervase, I can understand and accept your point of view about where you think clubs are or aren't, but you can't simply just pre-empt any ripostes to that viewpoint by saying things like Cue 30 posts from outraged club organisers insisting that their club is near perfection.... This doesn't bolster your argument.

The fact is that many clubs are doing OK, and you've had plenty of statements from posters to this thread who are saying just that - and I don't see any sense of outrage, just plain statements of fact. What seems to be emerging from this thread is that the state of folk clubs, in terms of vibrancy, simply varies from place to place. In some areas, for whatever reason, they appear to be doing well; in others, for whatever reason, they appear to be crap. I said early on in this thread that I'd recently been to clubs in Cheshire, Surrey and Sussex and that, without exception, they'd been very good experiences (and I'm not an uncritical person). Well - all I can do is pass comment on my experience, and I'm sorry if it buggers up part of your thesis - but there it is.