Interesting comments so far ladies and gentlemen,

Marynf
       Good point about introducing people slowly to good music, would love to know if more people have had success doing this. We do a similar thing at one of our regular venues and yes the audience comes along with you.

Spleen Cringe
             Would love to know where you and your friends do go to listen to acoustic or folk type music and if you can give a general age I would be interested to know as I find different generations find live music in different ways. We go to a number of open mikes and we find at the risk of being ageist, that people under 30 tend to be at the open mikes whereas in the folk clubs the average age is a lot older.

Leadfingers,
            Interesting point you make as my partner Una worked in Bunratty Castle Ireland doing medieval banquets for 4 years so understand what you mean. We do still include the wild rover in our sets sometimes and it is with some irony that at a lot of singaround sessions in the UK the Irish songs prove to be the most popular and most well known. Wonder why that is? (Maybe another thread sometime.)

I would be interested in hearing from other musicians who may do some folk music as to where they perform outside of the usual folk and festival circuit. It would be nice to see where folk music permeates through to.

One area I know a number of folk musicians work in is the Nursing/care homes here in the UK are there others?

Thanks
Tony