In case the innocent haven't noticed, this thread appears to be all about folk clubs in Australia.

There's plenty wrong with folk clubs in England, but in most cases quite different things from what was described in the message at the top of this thread. As for other countries - I'm not even sure if clubs are equivalent in the USA, where similar gigs seem to occur in "house concerts" (rare to nonexistent in the UK) and coffee houses (rare, though a club I know has recently moved to a US-style coffee house near here).

Anyway, in England, especially in the south, the trend has been for folk clubs to have falling attendances, and the average age of the audience (though not the performing guests) is going up - a dying generation.

Two opinions seen recently on that:
(1) a long discussion in news:uk.music.folk started with the suggestion that folk clubs should move out of small dirty rooms at the back of seedy pubs to locations more friendly to civilised human beings (village halls, community centres etc.)
(2) The editor's column in the current "Living Tradition" magazine suggests abolishing folk clubs altogether. Folk singing is for bars and public places (as opposed to closed pub function rooms), and folk dancing is for the streets.

Er... discuss!

Anahata