Bryan wrote:-
" I take it they didn't offer you a floor spot. "

None of the venues that I mentioned in my post above are run on folk club lines. Main/support artist is the norm - just as if you were going to a concert at The Dome, The Hawth or wherever in our area, though the numbers at the smaller venue gigs that I mentioned are generally under 100.
They present country, folk, a little jazz, singer/songwriters and rock bands (generally fairly unknown ones that have more intelligent lyrics. The venues are catering for an audience that does not see itself committed exclusively to one genre but will give anything that has a reasonably cerebral approach a listen. I reckon that this is a very common attitude amongst the rising generation of intelligent music enthusiasts.
I am totally committed to traditional music and song, otherwise why would I have been running a weekly folk club for 50 years..... but I don't think that music begins and ends with English folk music.
Yes, I was at the utterly hardcore traditional festival last weekend, but tomorrow I am very excited to be off to four days of lovely music from all over the world at WOMAD. I have been to a jazz event and two concerts by leading African performers during this July. I have also played five gigs this month - all with our dance band and none of them for a folk music crowd. We are playing traditional dance tunes to people who would never otherwise get a chance to hear them. Nearly always there are one or two people who come up to members of the band and ask about the music, its background, the instruments etc.
I think that it would do a lot of folkies good to get out of their ghetto and enjoy a wider range of music. Certainly, in terms of organisation, of the way we present out music, we have lots to learn.