My opinion, as an outsider to the Northern scene, is that the future is a Soul scene, not a 'northern soul' scene. People's perception of Northern Soul is that it belongs to the 70s, and has been carried on by those who got into it then, that it is a closed club. Same with the mod scene.
If you advertise a soul night as a a vintage soul night, new people will come, cos the 'scene' factor wont scare them away. Everyone understands what soul is, funk, or r&b, or cool 60s music is, they're self explanatory, it's the 'northern' or 'mod' bit that puts people off.
and that's what happened at Soul Revolution. No private club, just a big party playing great soul music.
I bet there wasn't a hipper, fuller and better atmosphere club in town that night, people from 18 to 60 all felt and looked perfectly at ease and the music was as good quality and rare as you'd get anywhere.
And most importantly, the variety of rooms / styles meant that there were no rules, made up by some scene that started f*** knows when. This meant that styles could be played that young or less knowledgable people could relate to - funk, funky soul, disco, etc. by younger people who dont care about the 'rules' or 'classics'.
There is this image that Northern Soul stands alone as a style from that era and that's just wrong. It's all soul. Ian Wright played several tracks in the 'funk' room that Butch played in the 'Soul' room.
It all made sense, accross three rooms, the dots were connected.
Hopefully the future will be a scene for music lovers, not people who like one style because they grew up with it.