I can understand why you think that, but I can assure you that they stem from direct comments from people I paddle with regularly as well as others I speak to on the river. A few in particular comment about a certain amount of self-important attitude they perceive at places like Tryweryn. As well as the whole pushy parent thing, which has put them off the thought of their own kids taking it up. Like I said, rightly or wrongly, but certainly not theory. And I have directly encountered the disinterest myself when I first suggested to my club about slalom at the Yat again a year or so back.Simon, I fear a lot of your comments on this thread and related stem from theory.
While I can understand you mentioning my lack of entering a race as a reason why you think much of what I have said is theory, the fact remains that people who are at a slalom event are already converted so to speak. They are not the outsiders looking in with all the perceptions (again rightly or wrongly) that that brings.
When faced with the choice of getting a plastic freestyle boat that can be used in any safe weir, playhole, and even river runs, that they can park up and play for an hour or so, compared with beginners slalom, which do you think is more appealing to the younger generation?
And that right there is another issue. Many perceive slalom to be boring. A comment from a close friend of mine was effectively "Why would I want to travel all the way to a slalom competing on grade 1/2 water with only a couple of runs in the day when I could go to Tryweryn or a totally natural river and have a blast all day at my leisure on G3/4 water?"
He's right. If the rivers are running, I certainly wouldn't want to be competing in a lower ranked 3/4 slalom on effectively flat water, especially when all the cost of fuel to do it is all factored in.
There is one simple fact in all of this. Slalom is a minority discipline, despite being an Olympic sport. Either all the reasons why people aren't interested in it can be tackled head on and honestly, or a load of Lottery funding etc can be found and thrown into a black hole. You need to take a solid look at why extreme creek races are becoming so popular, and the appeal of the way they sometimes mix slalom aspects into them. One reason races like the Moriston race work, and races such as Boater X at Tryweryn, and even the Addidas Sickline and Teva Games is because they are relatively informal and very importantly anyone can enter. One of my friends is doing just that for the Sickline. He's not a known paddler, but he's a good one and he entered it with no silly rules preventing him from doing so. None of this ranking palava.
The way you will rescue slalom is to make it appealing to people, exciting, and easy to access. That's all there is to it. Don't bother so much with the official CE/BCU stuff. If someone says they are a regular paddler on the type of water the event is on, let them enter. I know there are slalom events that you can go into and prove you can go on certain grades of water and enter a higher division rather than working through 3/4, but this is all still red tape, and only a few events allow this.
Run a separate easy to access series. Ditch the rankings and make it easier for anybody to enter, hold the competitions on interesting water, allow them to enter in a plastic boat of their choice. If you prefer to keep it formal with all the rankings and the requirement of a proper slalom boat in order to be allowed to paddle on challenging white water then be prepared for the sport to gradually decline. That's the bottom line IMHO and I know I won't be popular for saying so!