TheSnail -- you said "Bring us ideas. Make suggestions. Contribute. Don't just whinge about how awful clubs are. I'm sorry, but we can't stop being old much as we'd like to. Tell us what you want. What would bring you in? Folk clubs aren't WOMAD or Warwick Folk, Larmer Tree and Cheltenham Music festivals nor do they pretend to be but they do have a different sort of value."


I'm sorry if I was not clear about this though I thought I'd provided a few suggestions in my posts. I also don't think I was whingeing -- the question was "where have the audiences gone" and I was trying to give one possible answer. YMMV

As for the festivals I mentioned I was using them as examples of how they have worked at their presentation and communications to engage with modern audiences -- the festivals I have attended seem to have no problem attracting interest from across age, gender and racial groups. At Womad Cara Dillon filled her venue, Show of Hands overflowed theirs. Obviously folk clubs and performances are something different and obviously they don't want to copy what those festivals do but that doesn't mean that there aren't good lessons to be learned and it doesn't mean that they cannot attract interest from the same sort of people.

If you are happy with the state of performances or folk clubs where you are then there's no problem, but if what you are doing at the moment isn't working then doing more of the same is unlikely to improve matters. Age in itself is not the problem but I think that if you are interested in a "living" tradition but are not attracting both genders across ages and backgrounds how long will it remain alive?