Obviously, some of the comments here make me think twice about getting back to going to folk clubs. (Got a bit bored years ago, but missing it a bit if truth be known.)

I fear that one person's interpretation is different to another's.

I started going to clubs in the late '70s as a teenager. As I was in a rock band at the time, I enjoyed how playing acoustically improved your levels of instrument and voice, because you don/t have your reverb, wah wah or echo unit to mask your shortcomings.

I have had a good read through this thread and if clubs are as described, and attitudes prevail, then I might think again. I remember a local club I went to once, which failed to have a notice saying Warning - traditional music only, so I got up and sang my latest song, written a few days previously. If that had been my first folk club, it would have been my last. Never went back, and for the sin of singing my own song, I doubt I would have been welcome. A regular there came to another club, saw me and apologised for his mates.

As I said earlier on this forum, if I don't like something, I don't like it. Full stop. However, I will sit there, smile, clap at the end and make a mental note to go for a beer the next time he / she gets up to sing badly about being a Norfolk reed cutter.

Live and let live. Seems fair to me.

If a club has lots of singers and musicians who know their stuff, I might even bring some friends along. If most of the floor singers make me cringe and wish I was somewhere else, I will do just that. But I won't say why. That would be rude.