Scrump said "I'd like to see concert clubs do more to encourage local talent, perhaps by having occasional session nights instead of just guest nights. At present they seem to rely on other smaller venues to nurture new people, without doing their bit to help this process."

I think the problem you'd have would be that the reputation of that style of club would be offputting to people going for a singaround. I would imagine that most people go just to listen to the Big Name artist and wouldn't bother going for a singaround night - especially if most people are 'incomers'and there are few regulars.
I don't think the Concert clubs are interested in encouraging local talent or they'd be running singers nights anyway.
The small venue still has a place - if the people who sang at may club were invited to do something at a bigger venue they'd run a mile - I'm not being nasty it's just the way they like it to be - an intimate gathering in familiar surroundings.

As an aside to this, there is mention of getting publicity in the local papers. Most towns have a local paper that covers a good area around it. My club had a piece in the "Village Life" section that the local rag had picked off a website and we got an extra 8 people in that week that didn't know the club existed! Some came back the week after and brought more people with them!

I've also been able to get large photos and articles about guests appearing at another club I was a regular at simply by emailing the information to the contact address. They wrote the copy from what I sent them and put it alongside the photo. This backfired once when the guest was a threesome and the local council picked up on this and threatened the landlady with fine and jail as they'd had complaints about the noise from a recent beer festival and were looking for an excuse to apply the 2-in-a-bar rule. Unfortunately we had to find other premises but the club is still going in a new venue.

Getting the folk to the people rather than getting the people to the folk - I've been involved in a couple of sell out evenings where a few of us have organised a concert in a village pub/venue, put the word around to the locals who've come along and enjoyed a good night's entertainment and gone away asking when the next one was going to be. Very few of them had been inside a folk club before and may not go to one at all but it goes to show that the interest is there if you put a bit of effort into organising and advertising.

Cheers
Mark