Grassroots music venues faced ‘most challenging year’ in a decade in 2023

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An common of two grassroots music venues closed completely each week in 2023, marking what business figures have described as the “most challenging” yr in a decade.

The annual report from Music Venue Trust, the charity set as much as defend and enhance reside music areas in the UK, discovered that 125 areas closed their doorways to reside music in the final 12 months.

High-profile circumstances included the favored Moles membership in Bath, which had performed host to future stars together with Oasis, The Killers, and Ed Sheeran.

Announcing the information in December, its co-owners stated it had been a “horrendous” resolution to make however they’d been left with no different alternative, as they referred to as for a “major shake-up” of the reside business.

The report additionally discovered that, regardless of contributing over £500m to the economic system and using near 30,000 individuals, the grassroots scene remained “significantly underfunded compared to other areas of culture”.

MVT representatives stated the report painted “a stark picture” of the challenges nonetheless going through nearly all of reside music areas, whilst firms and artists on the prime finish of the business take pleasure in record-breaking income and revenue.

“2023 was the worst year for venue closures since Music Venue Trust launched 10 years ago,” Beverley Whitrick, COO of Music Venue Trust, stated in a assertion.

“We are still losing on average two venues a week and those that have survived are now consumed by threats to their continued existence that they have no chance of overcoming without immediate help.”

She added: “Without external support our entire sector would be bankrupt. We have been warning of these consequences for the last six years, yet still the top end of the live music sector posts record profits while, with a few notable exceptions, turning a blind eye to those who discover, nurture and develop the artists that generate that revenue for them.”

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Mark Davyd, CEO of Music Venue Trust, stated the report spoke for itself and warned that the scenario couldn’t be allowed to proceed.

“We must either find a way to act collectively to get these venues and the artists who rely on them the financial support they need to survive or we will seek legislation to compel it,” he stated.

Davyd has repeatedly referred to as for the introduction of a levy that may guarantee a contribution from “the most successful parts of our industry” into the grassroots scene from which most of the UK’s greatest artists emerged.

“The idea that we, as an industry, cannot voluntarily create a levy to support our grassroots sector, unilaterally and without government intervention is absurd but we cannot escape the fact that we are simply not acting fast enough,” he stated.

“It’s time to stop the excuses – we can no longer accept complacency from those in a position to help prevent the annihilation of our sector.”

Last yr, the Music Venue Trust efficiently launched its “Own Our Venues” scheme, creating a National Trust-style enterprise the place the organisation raises funds to purchase music areas and assist safe their future.

The scheme is backed by artists together with Ed Sheeran, who stated in 2022 that unbiased venues had been “so important” to the neighborhood.

Singer-songwriter Frank Turner, a longtime campaigner for the UK’s music venues and former ambassador for Independent Venues Week, advised The Independent that grassroots areas had been important for nurturing new expertise.

“Underground, unbiased music venues are the sine qua non of the favored music a part of our tradition, which itself is a major factor of our tradition and economic system,” he stated.

“They’re effectively an R&D department, allowing new talent to develop and find an audience, which can then go on to greater things. But they also provide a place for a whole ecosystem of less ambitious (but no less artistically valid) forms of artistic expression to thrive.

“Any society serious about its own art, culture and self-expression would treat them with the reverence they so clearly deserve; the fact that we broadly don’t is, in my view, telling.”