Independent Venue Week 2024: Grassroots venues struggling to survive after ‘brutal’ year

Sign up to Roisin O’Connor’s free weekly e-newsletter Now Hear This for the within observe on all issues music

Get our Now Hear This electronic mail without spending a dime

Singer-songwriter Frank Turner, rock band Palace, and the house owners and managers of the UK’s grassroots music venues are calling for extra authorities motion to help the struggling stay sector following a grim report by a charity representing impartial efficiency areas.

A latest report by the Music Venue Trust threw a stark gentle on the dire state of Britain’s native stay music scene, revealing that 125 venues had been pressured to completely shut their doorways in 2023.

As Independent Venues Week is noticed between 29 January to 4 February, the folks behind fashionable venues from Carmarthen to Cornwall advised The Independent about their experiences attempting to preserve these areas from closing down endlessly, whereas artists urged the federal government to take extra motion so as to defend the UK’s world-beating music scene, together with its vital contribution to the British financial system.

Rufus Maurice began The Cornish Bank in Falmouth along with his enterprise associate, Will Greenham, and the assistance of assorted loans and grants – simply because the UK was going into lockdown. Fortunately, by the point they had been prepared to launch, the federal government had lifted restrictions to permit venues to re-open.

“That slightly benefited us because it was like the town was desperate for this kind of venue – anything we put on was selling out, six or seven days a week,” Rufus advised The Independent. “We were probably fooled by that and thought it would continue like that.”

However, regardless of a slow-down after the preliminary rush after lockdown, Rufus and his associate have managed to keep a gentle enterprise for the previous few years. “It’s been tough,” he mentioned. “I think grassroots is massively underfunded despite generating so much for the industry. I don’t think they get the respect for the work they’re doing.”

The venue’s location created further struggles, he mentioned. In summer season final year, locals in Falmouth hit out on the increase in cash-rich consumers from outdoors the city snapping up properties for AirBnb or second properties, claiming they had been being pressured off the property ladder.

“I’ve got staff working for us who are living in caravans or just struggling to pay their rent,” he mentioned. “The rents are crazy around here – we pay £90,000 for this place. Then we’ve got wages, stock… and a 25-grand electricity bill.”

Rufus mentioned the Music Venue Trust report had “sent shivers” via him and his workforce: “I think everyone in this industry is looking behind them – every time I hear that the doors of another venue have closed, I feel terrified. We’re pretty efficient but there are no more margins to cut, and that’s a really scary thing.”

Enjoy limitless entry to 70 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music

Sign up now for a 30-day free trial

Sign up

Enjoy limitless entry to 70 million ad-free songs and podcasts with Amazon Music

Sign up now for a 30-day free trial

Sign up

Chris Wemyss, the venue supervisor at MacArts – a transformed church within the city of Galashiels on the Scottish Borders – has seen the house go from internet hosting “relatively small” folks and jazz gigs by native artists, to artists on nationwide excursions reminiscent of The Big Moon and Arab Strap. It additionally runs help schemes for younger bands, and throws gigs for youthful audiences aged 14+.

“We’ve been running on a shoestring for decades,” he advised The Independent, crediting MacArts’ charity standing, some funding from native and nationwide arts councils, and a peppercorn hire with its ongoing survival.

“We had a fairly good Christmas, which was an absolute lifesaver for us,” he mentioned. “But with the general cost of living crisis, ticket sales are going down and our costs have rocketed.”

He referred to as the UK authorities’s help for the grassroots trade “absolutely pitiful” and mentioned that, had been it not for the venue’s charity standing, they might not have survived.

“It seems like a no-brainer that every single major artist started out in a small venue,” he mentioned, “but it’s the big players that are taking all the money from that.”

Bands and solo artists have been talking out in help of those venues, the place the vast majority of them first lower their enamel in stay performances, for many years. Every band has a musical mecca, a spot the place they’ve been birthed onstage,” Palace frontman Leo Wyndham advised The Independent. “A place where they’ve played endless shows to no-one and anyone. That place for our band was The George Tavern in Stepney, London.

“We first played there 11 years ago. We were terrible then, had about three songs to our name, and were more wooden than the floorboards of the pub. But the George was a place where we could cut our teeth and feel welcome as a band in its rawest form. Slowly but surely, we built the confidence that has got us to where we are today.”

He mentioned it was exhausting to comprehend how “wildly underappreciated” impartial grassroots venues had been: “They are deeply ingrained in our country’s musical fabric, but remain unnoticed and unsung.

“As they slip away, so do opportunities for young bands to solidify their musical identity and develop that essential confidence and chemistry onstage to realise their full potential,” he continued.

“Every musician, famous or not, started off in one of these venues – safe, intimate, accessible spaces for expression and experimentation. Some of the happiest gigs of my life are still the ones at The George in front of 20 or so people. We still go back to play sometimes just to feel that magic again.”

“Grassroots venues really are foundational for building connections as an emerging band,” indie duo Dolores Forever, who opened for pop band Bastille final year, agreed. “Those first few supporters are like gold dust and valued beyond belief, often following along with pride of having been there at the start.

“Our first Dolores Forever headline tour last year included venues such as Omeara in London and Oporto in Leeds, and we certainly made some core memories in those places. It’s always so inspiring to play these venues and see [all the bands who played there] when they were starting out. Nobody gets to the top of the ladder without that first important step on the bottom rung.”

For the music group of Leytonstone, east London, the Luna Lounge has been a haven for stay performances for the previous 20 years. Venue supervisor Declan Walsh joined the workforce three years in the past, later taking on night occasions when his enterprise associate, founder Suja Luna Khaled, determined to step again. Tragedy struck when Suna died out of the blue throughout the pandemic, leaving Declan left to run the membership solo.

“It’s been a journey,” he mentioned, “and I’m constantly learning along the way.” He’s arrange a crowdfunder in an effort to assist defend the venue, which is at the moment in a precarious place even because it celebrates its twentieth anniversary.

“I feel that [grassroots venues] are forgotten about a bit, and just expected to always be there,” Declan mentioned. “I hope that stories like the Luna Lounge might encourage people to think about what they can do to ensure these spaces are protected, because a lot of us are in crisis right now, and if we’re forced to shut down we won’t return.”

For different venues, the state of affairs is much less dire however nonetheless a problem. Former instructor Michael Hilton opened the 150-capacity Cwrw bar – a pub since 1758 – in Carmarthen, Wales, in 2019, as a craft beer pub that additionally hosted stay music. They managed to thrive throughout the pandemic by promoting their beer on-line then, when lockdown lifted, continued internet hosting stay reveals in addition to supporting new and rising artists via workshops and native tasks.

Michael was finally ready to purchase the constructing and due to this fact safeguard Cwrw for the long run. He acknowledges that few grassroots venue managers could have this chance, and backs the MVT scheme Own Our Venues, the place areas are purchased via crowdfunding and positioned beneath a belief. He can also be vehemently in help of a compulsory ticket levy for stadiums and arenas, which might be fed again into the grassroots scene.

“It could be the saving grace actually,” he mentioned. “Looking at the profits that corporations are making on these stadium tours, it is absolutely ridiculous. Something needs to change.”

Singer-songwriter Frank Turner, a two-time ambassador for Independent Venues Week and one of the crucial vocal champions of UK grassroots venues, referred to as them the “sine qua non of the popular music part of our culture… itself a significant component of our culture and economy”.

“They’re effectively an R&D department, allowing new talent to develop and find an audience, which can then go on to greater things,” he advised The Independent. “But additionally they present a spot for a complete ecosystem of much less formidable (however no much less artistically legitimate) types of creative expression to thrive.

“Any society critical about its personal artwork, tradition and self-expression would deal with them with the reverence they so clearly deserve; the truth that we broadly don’t is, in my opinion, telling.“