Joan and Jayne are both right Beeks. far fewer people travel these days, number of reasons I guess but the music is far more accessible, especially with the amount of boots/reissues etc and of course mp3's. Going back to tapes, well wouldn't be a bad thing, the tape swappers circuit back in the 80's was superb, just not the same downloading an mp3. I like to hear how people put a tape/.cd together, just as I do when I listen to a dj. People just don't bother anymore to travel to hear the records they can't get as they are often availbale at the click of a mouse.
I agree the advertising is invaluable but we found out what was on and where to go before sites like Soul Source so I guess the scene would have carried on just as before. In fact word of mouth as it used to be was probably the best way to finds out what a venue was like rather than read what half a dozen mates of the promoter puts in look backs.
And the new glossy flyers are just no good...flyers were invaluable for scribbling info down on the back, you just can't do this now with the glossy two sided C5 flyers