Excellent thread topic. Many folkies need reminding that the folk scene has precious litle to do with the folk. The scene grew up from the 50/60's revival, and the clubs and festivals developed as places where people could preserve and experiment with material of folk origin. Forty years later, you can't help feeling that the stuff ought to be re-released into the wild: quite a lot of performers are doing that, and fair play to them, but there is another whole range of performers who rarely venture even to dip a toe into the wider world.
There are a huge range of non-folk venues that employ a lot of folk acts, and it's a great pity that more specialist folk performers aren't prepared to try their skills in the general music venues, the pubs, the non-folk festivals etc etc. And it doesn't have to involve wearing long dresses or minstrel hats and going to Bunratty! Glastonbury Festival is a good place to start: put your music alongside rock and jazz and other stuff, and see how it all fits together. You'll enjoy it.