Its a bit chicken and egg really. We've just got back from Moira Furnace Festival where there were several under 30's playing stage spots and much appreciated by the audiences. All of them very good singers/musicians. Unfortunately if you haven't been seen at a festival its very difficult to persuade festival organisers that they ought to book you, so they tend to keep going back to the tried and tested artists with their feet firmly planted in the 60s (not that there is anything wrong with that). You won't get many young people wanting to come and sit in a concert populated almost entirely by people aged 65+. There were lots of young people involved in music and dance sides so I think there is a future for young people at festivals, and therefore a future for festivals themselves. Perhaps the smaller festivals are the way forward. I don't get to many big ones but suspect that quite a bit of the music actually fits other genres and is included to bring the younger people in. Perhaps once they are in some of them will get hooked on the more traditional songs, music and dance, but be prepared for them to do it in their own way! After all folk (music and dance) is a living breathing experience which must be allowed to develop as it always has. Certainly one organisation we belong to has missed the boat and is despairing at the lack of young families joining them. The warning signs were there twenty years ago but there was a bit of an 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' mentality amongst the older members so what do you expect?