Festivals and concerts are where people are paying good money to place their bums on the seats

Festivals vary as much as folk clubs. At one extreme you have events like Sidmouth and Whitby with a mix of formats where you participate or sit back and be entertained in whatever combination suits you and at the other what is no more than a longer than usual concert.

Looking around the demographics of various events I suspect that the next couple of decades will see a contraction in song based events as the dominant generation dies out and an expansion in dance which is where I see more youngsters.

Once we have all gone there will, no doubt, be another generation of "young radicals" who will rebel against the heavily arranged performances of the current crop of graduates and look back to the sources.