More depression, I'm afraid, feel free to skip this.
As mentioned elsewhere, we attended a family wedding on Saturday. Chatting to fellow guests, we mentioned our festival plans for the summer.
A few people of various ages from mid-20s to mid-50s asked who was headlining at each of the four festivals we're going to.
First telling point was that I had to look them up online. Honestly, no-one stuck in my head.
Second telling point was that most people we spoke with had never heard of almost any of the artists. Rick Wakeman caused a raised eyebrow from one older guy, but only because he was convinced Rick died years ago.
One woman looked over my shoulder at the screen showing Cropredy artists and commented that if they're having a special guest and they're not selling enough tickets, you'd think the Special Guest's identity wouldn't be shrouded in secrecy. Unless they're not that special.
Incidentally, it was recently suggested that the Special Guest may well be Joe Brown (again). Nice chap, but not a draw.
I enthused about the New Forest Folk Festival too. Again, no-one had heard of the artists featured except for Oysterband, by one person who thought they'd broken up years ago. When I mentioned this was their farewell tour, he wasn't at all surprised.
Of the Shrewsbury Folk Festival artists this year, The Longest Johns and Josh Burnell were the only artists even vaguely recognised - by two people. Spiers and Boden may be famous in some parts of the world, but not Herefordshire, it seems.
Kate Rusby was recognised by a couple of people as the Beardy Folk Festival headliner, but no-one else seemed to strike a chord.
Now, admittedly, this was not a gathering of folkies. Far from it, some were metalheads, most just the standard British public. Frank Turner was mentioned a few times, for instance.
What this brought home to me was that the folk audience is not enlarging right now - it's shrinking as people stop going to festivals and gigs (for whatever reason, cost, age, illness, death).
Right now, if mostly-folk-based festivals want to survive, I reckon they have to diversify, get some artists that will appeal beyond the folkies and embark on publicity campaigns, perhaps jointly and severally to sell themselves outside of their traditional audience.
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