This is beginning to sound like a school for the blind offering a research degree in elephantology. I presume JClapp knows what kind of folk scene he/she is after, but there are a hell of a lot of them to choose from.

I suppose another way to do it would be to become a volunteer roadie for a group that played the folk club circuit. That way you'd get to see their audiences in a lot of different places. The tastes of the people you'd find would then be much the same (or else why would they all be going to hear the same group?) and the variable would be the geography.