Many of the audience are attracted by the modern way of presenting the music and have no interest, and would even be turned off by, authentic traditional singers. I was like this myself, once.

I used to think an evening of never knowing what kind of music (or what standard of performance) you were going to get - and being able to get up myself and sing anything I liked - was just the bestest thing ever; if asked I would have said that that was the great thing about folk clubs. Then I found the door in the hill that let me into Tradworld, and I've never looked back - I just enjoyed it so much more. (OK, it wasn't quite as sudden as that - more a case of 'first gradually, then all at once'.)