UK grassroots venues “going over a cliff” without urgent government action or investment from arenas 

A brand new report from the Music Venue Belief reveals that grassroots gig areas within the UK are “going over a cliff” – shutting off the pipeline of future expertise with out pressing authorities motion and funding from new massive arenas.

• READ MORE With Nambucca closing and The Leadmill below risk, campaigners name for venues to personal their buildings

The MVT, which represents nearly 1,000 UK grassroots music venues, has at this time (Tuesday January 31) shared its 2022 annual report – laying out the worth of the sector to each the UK economic system and the music trade, in addition to the grave hazard that venues and UK face with out pressing motion. Because it stands, the most recent figures present viewers numbers had been at 89 per cent of their 2019 degree, at about 21million.

The report was launched final week with an occasion attended by NME on the Homes Of Parliament, with a sobering speech from the MVT and a efficiency from patron Frank Turner.

“This can be a £500million sector delivering 177,000 occasions a yr, using 31,000 folks, and with 21million folks visiting grassroots music venues yearly,” stated MVT CEO Mark Davyd on the occasion. “It’s exceptional that we’ve got to publish a report earlier than anyone observed that. We must always have identified that every one alongside – how necessary these venues are to native communities and to our pals from the music trade.

“Nonetheless, that’s the tip of the excellent news. This sector is admittedly critically in hassle. With £500million of turnover, that’s £499million in prices and a a 0.2 per cent revenue margin. It’s not sustainable. There are 177,000 occasions taking place, nevertheless it’s down 16.7 per cent. We used to do a median of 4.2 occasions per week at these venues, and we’re now down to three.5.”

He continued: “Each single a kind of venues that isn’t doing a kind of reveals means a musician who isn’t getting their first probability, it’s somebody who may by no means step foot on a stage, it’s a misplaced profession for that particular person and to the British music trade, it’s a loss to that neighborhood, and it can’t go on. It’s got to cease.”

Highlighting a lot of “very vital issues”, Davyd began by pointing to the price of the vitality disaster – which threatens to “shut extra venues than COVID” except addressed.

“The Chancellor’s place on the Vitality Aid Package deal is nonsense,” stated Davyd. “I’m sorry to say that in Parliament and I’m purported to be non-political, nevertheless it gained’t work. We have now venues with a 0.2 per cent revenue margin, going through a seven per cent enhance of their vitality prices on April 1. That’s in three months. The Chancellor has written to OfGem asking them what they could do. It doesn’t matter what they could do.

“There’s a bundle of assist for industries that may fail if they’ll’t afford their vitality, and the grassroots music venues must be in it – now. We will’t wait till April 1 to search out out whether or not OfGem are in a superb temper. We’d like change on this proper now. ”

Elsewhere, the MVT additionally highlighted the VAT utilized to venue ticket gross sales as “crushing the financial viability of this sector and decreasing the power of the grassroots to create new British expertise.”

“We’re working on a 0.2 per cent revenue margin with about £1million in revenue being made – that’s on £133million of tickets,” stated Davyd. “They’re spending £212million on reside music, and dropping £79million selling new artists, rising expertise and investing in our communities. That may’t go on.

“It may’t be the duty of a music venue in Bromsgrove on a Tuesday evening to go to a cashpoint and take their very own cash out in order that we are able to construct the careers of artists which the music trade goes on to make thousands and thousands of kilos for and pay unbelievable quantities of tax.

“You’ve bought to ask your self as a Parliamentarian, what number of Ed Sheerans would you like? As a result of we produced the final one and we are able to produce the subsequent one. He performed 366 reveals on the grassroots music degree, and Ed will inform you himself that he discovered find out how to be Ed Sheeran. He didn’t simply stroll on stage and will out of the blue headline Wembley – it took him 366 reveals.

“You want an area the place folks can be taught their abilities.”

Davyd defined how UK venues are “paying a daft quantity of tax out of this sector and into the treasury and that’s via pre-profit taxation” – at a extremely uncompetitive charge in comparison with the a lot of the remainder of Europe.

“We’re paying that via VAT on tickets at 20 per cent, which is the very best of any main music nation Europe – second solely to Lithuania within the quantity we cost folks for placing on new and rising expertise. That’s ridiculous,” stated Davyd.

“Grassroots venus are the analysis and growth wing of the music trade. Why the hell are we taxing folks for doing that? We don’t try this in another trade. If you need folks to create new merchandise, new British mental property rights, and to create ‘Model Britain’, then what are you taxing them at supply for? That is mindless. Why pay extra to see our personal artists in our nation than you must pay in tax to see them in France?”

In addition to calling for adjustments to planning purposes in order that the MVT can become involved to cease developments and residents launching noise complaints in opposition to current venues – a matter that Manchester’s Night time & Day are presently battling with – Davyd additionally demanded an finish to “extreme enterprise charges” that cripple grassroots areas.

“These are locations that make folks exit and that get folks impressed,” he stated. “Each £10 spent in a grassroots music venue results in £17 spent elsewhere within the evening time economic system. If you wish to get this economic system shifting, you’ve bought to interrupt down the price.

“I’ll supply, on behalf of each grassroots music venue, to pay 50 per cent tax on all revenue we make on reside music – as a result of we’re not making any cash on reside music, however you’re making us pay tax and it’s fully unsustainable. VAT has to come back down, enterprise charges must be reviewed, that’s the tip of it. Please get on prime of this, Parliamentarians. It’s actually slicing the legs out of our trade.”

Authorities apart, MVT additionally outlined plans to require all new music arenas opening within the UK to “contribute to the safety of the broader music ecosystem by investing a proportion of each ticket they promote into the grassroots music ecosystem”.

“I’m placing the music trade on discover: we’re over the sting,” Davyd advised these assembled at Parliament. “We’re not close to the sting, we’re over the sting and we’re tumbling down. You should throw a lifeline down. We will’t pay £79million a yr to create the artists which might be going to look in your competition phases. It’s not doable for us to try this.

“There are eight new arenas being constructed within the UK. I advised somebody from the trade this and so they couldn’t imagine me, though it’s most likely their artists that will probably be filling it for the subsequent six years or so. However they gained’t be filling it in 10 years, as a result of it’s doable that The Rolling Stones will finally die.

Davyd continued: “We have now bought to have a correct analysis and growth arm on this nation that helps new artists, develops their careers and brings them out of this. That’s the duty of everybody on this trade, and it merely isn’t adequate to attend for a lone venue operator to take an opportunity on a brand new band, dropping cash till you’ll be able to wait till they promote sufficient tickets to take it up a degree so the artist can by no means return there once more and there’s no return for that venue operator.”

Pointing to the eight new arenas being constructed throughout the UK within the coming years, Davyd demanded that “not a single a kind of arenas ought to open except it has a coverage the place each ticket bought is investing again into grassroots music venues and grassroots artists”.

“In any other case, you’re constructing a carbuncle, a white elephant in the midst of our main cities that won’t be crammed in 10 years time as a result of there gained’t be the artists to fill it,” he argued. “Co-Op Dwell in Manchester will probably be a 23,500 capability venue on account of open later this yr or early subsequent yr. It has no plan in any respect to put money into the grassroots venues which might be going to create the artists that may fill that stage in 10 years time. That isn’t adequate.

He went on: “I’m telling Andy Burnham, I’m telling Manchester MPs, I’m telling Manchester Metropolis Council: you shouldn’t grant a licence for that venue to open if it will probably’t work out find out how to put a reimbursement into the grassroots system from which the artists it depends on are being produced.

“Say no to those arenas except there’s a pipeline. The arenas have gotten to get on board. You are able to do it for 50p on a ticket. You understand how a lot these tickets price? At 23,500 tickets an evening, you’d increase £11,000.”

Davyd added: “The distribution of wealth on this trade has bought to vary and be sustainable for grassroots or all of us heading down over the cliff. You’re coming with us, you’re chained to us, don’t go away us dangling, come and assist us.”

I used to be delighted to host the @musicvenuetrust on the Homes of Parliament not too long ago for his or her Annual Report. In case you’re taken with supporting grass roots music venues and need to know how one can become involved with MVT’s campaigns, go to their web site right here: https://t.co/puO0JAM7ro pic.twitter.com/zLzxeRWeev

— Kevin Brennan MP (@KevinBrennanMP) January 30, 2023

The occasion at Parliament occurred on the invitation of MP Kevin Brennan – who started by arguing that grassroots music venues are the “analysis and growth arm of the UK music trade”.

“That is the place the way forward for the trade lies,” he stated. “It’s the pipeline. Regularly, grassroots music venues are doubtlessly below risk. We’re one of many few international locations on the planet who’re a internet exporter of music, and that’s not going to hold on being the case except we’ve bought a really vibrant grassroots music sector throughout the nation.”

MVT patron Frank Turner, who carried out a number of songs on the evening, agreed with Brennan however argued that “that’s not the one purpose that the grassroots music sector issues”.

“There may be an terrible lot of artwork and tradition that exists in these areas however isn’t happening its technique to be a stadium act,” stated Turner. “It’s simply artwork that’s worthy of our consideration, our assist and our perception. Let’s imagine in each band who performs in a grassroots music venue, or at the very least who offers it a go.”

Go to right here to learn Music Venue Belief’s full annual 2022 report.

Final yr, MVT additionally launched its ‘Personal Our Venues’ marketing campaign aimed toward offering possession to grassroots music venues throughout the nation.

The scheme, which was backed not too long ago by Ed Sheeran, goals to safe the long-term futures of those venues by straight tackling the problem of possession. The scheme has been likened to “The Nationwide Belief, however for venues”.