Mike quotes me and then goes on:-
"Young people do not seek out folk clubs to hear folk music."
I generally regard Vic's posts as among the rewards of reading Mudcat. But I can make no sense of this statement whatsoever. What else would anyone seek out a Folk Club for but to hear Folk Music?

My point, Mike, (perhaps not well made) is that there are many young people who have developed a taste for folk music but do not seek out folk clubs to hear it. The loosening up of genres and venues that I mentioned in the post that you quote from indicates that a lot of young people do not seek out specialist music venues to hear their music but will go to festivals and urban music venues where the music is usually of high quality but covers a wide range of types of music.
I have mentioned this before on Mudcat but it is very relevant here. A couple of years ago, I went to a venue beneath Brighton rail station, black painted walls and hardly any seats. Alasdair Roberts was in concert with one local support act. The crowd of about 80 was young and stood and listened with rapt attention to his programme with included a good proportion of Scots traditional ballads sung, some unaccompanied, with great skill and understanding of the genre. At the interval, I went round handing out copies of the local listings magazine The Folk Diary of which I am joint editor. It seemed to be of interest to them, but very few claimed that they had seen it before. It was a real eye-opener for me. There was a generation of potential enthusiasts that were not even aware of what the folk scene was doing.
Whether, my giving them the magazines made them attend any of local folk music venues, I would not like to say. It helped to convince me, however, that there has been one great social change. 50 or 60 years ago young people defined themselves to quite a large extent by the music they listened to. If you asked what sort of music do you like and the answer was skiffle, modern jazz, folk music, pop music, trad jazz, country music...... the answer told you a lot about that person.
My point is that this is no longer the case.