I don't think folk audiences are any stingier or more profligate than any other. It's simply that, festivals aside, the workaday, bread and butter of it all is rooted in what are often very modest clubs. Audiences tend to be smaller. I used to play (rock'n roll) regularly in working men's clubs, trades and labour clubs, etc., all over the South of England, and many of them - in those days - were large venues and paid well. We went through an agency and got a good, standard fee for most of the venues we played. These clubs charged members a modest entrance fee, if any fee at all because, through members' annual subs, there was a healthy entertainments fund. Bar prices were always far below pub prices in these places.

It was just a different world. As far as folk club audiences are concerned, I think they're far from stingy - and often a damned sight more enthusiastic for their music.