I'd be interested to know how you're defining English traditional music, Dick, cause I see lots of young performers booked at loads of festivals who are exploring English traditional song. Jim Causley and Devil's Interval, Demon Barbers, Tim van Eyken, Witches of Elswick, Jackie Oates, Lisa Knapp...the list goes on.

Our folk festival is incorporating its own in-house acoustic folk club this year, specifically to cater for and celebrate the more traditional end of the market. Many other festivals have a second stage featuring more traditional acts, too.

I disagree that incorporating traditional work is a bad commercial decision. You can have commercial and traditional performers in the same festival. The cost of putting on traditional acts is tiny compared to the cost of the more commercial strand of the programme, plus the technical costs are negligible. But if you have a decent traditional strand to your programme you'll attract additional audiences. So as a business decision, it seems a sound one to me.