In contrast to Will Fly's observations above: I play in band(the Boat Band) with 99% trad folk repertoire, and our bread and butter work is all private parties, weddings, birthdays, organisations' piss-ups etc etc. Unfortunately, however good you are at doing these gigs, it will have no impact on your work on the folk scene, as you won't get written up in fRoots as a good wedding band! English folk journailsts, by and large, go to watch the jolly locals having fun in the local shebeens abroad, but at home they strictly write up what is put in front of them by the larger festivals and the BBC.
   To get a bit more on-topic on the thread: the clubs are changing rapidly. A huge amount of new blood is coming into the folk scene at the moment: or, perhaps to be more accurate, a lot of new blood is calling itself folk, and inventing a whole new scene. Whether any of us old-timers can make interesting contact with the Young Turks remains to be seen.There will soon be a lot more categories than David El Gnomo's initial three suggestions.