'The live folk club circuit consists of audiences aged 50+, who just want to hear the same boring, cliche-ridden, derivative take on "folk music" that they have been going to clubs and listening to for years.'

That view is in itself becoming a boring cliché and it simply isn't true any more. My experience of folk club audiences in the last ten years is that the average age is starting to come down again. Last Thursday we had about a dozen people under the age of 30 at Islington Folk Club which is a big change from two years before, and the organisers tell me their annual Trad2Mad competition (look it up on YouTube) is bringing in surprising numbers of youngsters*. I've seen similar changes at other clubs. That's to say nothing of young dance teams (Morris, rapper, etc), old dance teams with younger members and a trio of Suffolk step dancers aged "nearly 10" to 14 who've been doing it for four years now.

Anahata

* Hey CS! I'm not even 60 yet !