It's always surprising to me how narrow many people's musical interests are. I belong to a local folk society, and we try to address a mix of traditional, bluegrass, oldtime, contemporary and ethnic folk music; but a large proportion of our membership only comes out to hear bluegrass and oldtime. We used to do more with blues music, but the blues fans split off and formed their own group which presents only blues. I find that many people not only have a strong preference for a single genre, they actually dislike/have contempt for anything outside that genre. I don't get it, but then I'm an Aries (short attention span).

I assume the venues are trying to maximize their attendance/revenue by booking only acts of whatever type is currently drawing the biggest crowds. This is a good short-term strategy, but lousy in the long run, because tastes change and most people tend to get sick of hearing the same thing over and over (why I don't listen to alleged-country radio anymore), so audiences will eventually drift to a new venue playing the new "flavor of the month". Folk has seldom been a mass-market style, and you can't keep a venue going if you can't put butts in seats. But for performers, the more the venue adheres to one format, the less chance of anyone even a little different getting a chance to play. Quel dilemma!