I went along to one of the 'Stars of the Future Nights' last year at The Bridge Hotel Folk Club in which students from the degree course (AKA The Kids from Fame) each do a fifteen minute set which, I believe, goes toward they're final grade. The word was this was the only way they could coerce them into attending local folk clubs.

I was impressed by the overall standard, but dismayed by the general attitude; understandable perhaps in terms of their immaturity / ego / ambition. But whilst ordinarily such premature preening & posturing would have been justifiably scoffed at, the fawning deference shown to them by the local singers was quite sickening to behold, many of whom were only to grateful for this gratis glimpse of future folk celebrity.

Another Monolith in the Corporate Cultural Landscape of what they're now calling NewcastleGateshead.