"If you win one of these competitions, is there ever any real gain from it?"

Definitely!

My wife (Wendy Arrowsmith) won the songwriting competition at Saltburn Folk Festival in 2007. She was just starting out and had never done a main guest folk club slot. Take a look at what her gig list looks like now (June/ July are deliberately quiet as she will be running around getting her 2nd album ready for planned Aug 1st release date) Wendy's Gig List . Note the full guest appearance at said Saltburn Fest this year.

Now she might have achieved this anyway but I have no doubt it has helped.

Her winning song The Visitor has been picked up by quite a few people and you can hear it sung at quite a few clubs round these here parts!

Again, this might have happened anyway but I can only think the Saltburn song comp gave the song some real impetus.

Paul