Greg: There's an obvious risk here of over-generalising, but from my limited experience I'd say that music players have gone off to their own sessions rather than playing in the folk clubs, so that clubs have become more of a place for singers. Not necessarily singer-songwriters, there's a lot of traditional material sung around, but the music takes second place to the song. And the audience that remains are those who prefer it that way, building in a bias so that organisers avoid booking pure musicians (as opposed to stars such as Fitzpatrick and Laycock, who are musically second to none but don't generally do pure music gigs).

However, maybe it looks different in other parts of the country, or even other clubs locally than the one I go to.

Personally, as a non-dancing non-musician, there are only so many rigs and jeels I can take in one evening.