UK folk festivals 2017 - on Google gives 5,420,000 results
UK folk festivals 2007 - on Google gives 46,900,000 results
UK folk festivals 1997 - on Google gives 43,700,000 results

IF the above are of any significance at all, then there is a marked and sharp decline from 2013 onward (2014 - 38,300,000: 2015 - 20,400,000 & 2016 - 7,820,000).

GUEST, Voices of the future:

No one is TELLING you to do anything, neither are they DICTATING anything to anyone.

No-one is insulting the current generation's legitimacy and value as creative artists. What is in dispute is whether or not there is any legitimacy in the claim, by others, that they are folk artists.

You ask, "How dare they consider themselves to have such superior taste and judgement". Possibly because THEY, and Jim Carroll in particular, have spent decades, researching, collecting and participating in the folk music of the British Isles and object quite rightly to just any modern popular music genres being "lumped into" folk music as a catch all.

Quite a number of bands have been mentioned in this thread as examples. It is worthwhile taking a look at how those bands describe themselves - FOLK is not the first thing that you see when they themselves describe what music they play. Folk does get a mention as a guiding influence and source of inspiration. THAT does not make them folk artists and who books them to play where is totally irrelevant.

Vic Smith, the magazine you recommend for our reading started off as The Southern Rag, then became Folk Roots and then became fRoots. There is a progression there for all to see, when does it just become Roots?