I don't do festivals any more: but to confirm that, as Dick & Lizzie say & Folkiedavie is barking up wrong tree about the networking he does with just about Everybody at festivals making a difference to the principle -

YES, the Folk Scene is as cliquy & hierarchical as any other.

30 years ago I myself was, as those old enuff may recall, a Folk Somebody - I don't say this to blow own trumpet or squeeze own concertina or any such, but becoz it is the point of the story. Not as performer, but I was then folk critic of The Guardian & folk-book critic of The Times, regular columnist for Folk Review &c &c. So I had the entrée, as you might say.

In one of those between-timeses at a festival [I think it was Norwich] a group of us were chilling out. Peter Bellamy, Martin Carthy, Noel Murphy, Nic Jones, Alex Atterson [who organised that festival] & I were all in a group chewing the rag. A hand squeezed my elbow & a voice said 'Hello'; I turned around & it was a friend from my hometown, Cambridge, whom I knew from the local clubs who was a fine singer & smallpipes player. So I said, "Oh, hi, Ed", & to the others "This is my friend Ed from Cambridge; he is a great singer & smallpiper". Now they were all perfectly pleasant and polite people, & they all smiled and said "Hi Ed" - but then they turned away from him & got on with their own chat; not in a hostile way, but just that none of them tried to include him or make him feel at home - they didn't mean to be rude, I'm sure; but he just wasn't One·Of·Us; you could tell. I remember telling my wife, who wasn't all that folkie & didn't come to festivals I was reviewing with me, about this incident when I got home, & she said "Oh, sure. I'm afraid that's absolutely typical; you are sure to find the Pecking Order wherever you go."

That incident taught me a lesson about the Folk Scene being just like any other kind of Scene, which I think is relevant to this thread, I think... Even tho I am not exercised at present as to who does or does not headline festivals.