Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham shares support for the £1 arena ticket levy to save grassroots venues: “Urgent action is needed”
Andy Burnham, Manchester Mayor, has backed calls for a £1 levy to be added to the costs of arena show tickets to help save grassroots music venues.
Earlier this year, the Music Venue Trust delivered their full report into the state of the sector for 2023, showing the “disaster” facing live music with venues closing at a rate of around two per week. Presented at Westminster, the MVT echoed their calls for a levy on tickets on gigs at arena size and above and for major labels and such to pay back into the grassroots scene, arguing that “the big companies are now going to have to answer for this”.
The Music Venue Trust has pushed for this system to be introduced as a way of safeguarding the UK’s talent pipeline, similar to how the Premier League funds local football clubs. A similar system is in use in France, where 3.5 per cent of the gross value of tickets sold goes back to a grassroots fund which artists, promoters and venues can apply for.
Last month, the cross-party Culture, Media and Sport Committee, have shared a report highlighting the importance of grassroots venues, calling for immediate financial help through “a levy-funded support fund and a targeted temporary VAT cut to help stem the tide of closures”, as well as calling for “a comprehensive fan-led review of live and electronic music” to “examine the long-term challenges to the wider live music ecosystem”.
DCMS’ new report says that “given the urgency of the crisis, a voluntary levy on arena and stadium concert tickets would be the most feasible way to have an immediate impact, creating a support fund for venues, artists and promoters administered by a trust led by a sector umbrella body”.
The report said that the industry must also ensure that the levy cost is not passed on to music fans – with Enter Shikari proving that this can be done with their own system last year – and that “if there is no agreement by September or if it fails to collect enough income to support the sector, the Government should step in an introduce a statutory levy”.
Now, Burnham has lent his support to the idea. He has also backed the idea of a targeted VAT cut to help struggling venues, which has also made him the first politician to openly comment on the DCMS report.
“Music Venue Trust has been instrumental in supporting UK grassroots venues. I’ve seen many of my favourite bands in some of these spaces, and they play a key role in the nighttime economy and music scene of Greater Manchester and the wider UK,” he said in a Music Venue Trust press release. “I fully support the recommendations published by the Culture, Media & Sport Select Committee including the introduction of a levy and a targeted VAT cut to halt the rising tide of closures. However, it’s clear that urgent action is needed to support venues and the talented artists playing them.”
The loss of grassroots music venues is despite record-breaking billions being spent on ticket sales in the UK, with summer 2023 seeing a bumper calendar for stadium and outdoor gigs – including 1million people attending live music events in London just in one week alone back in July, thanks to huge outdoor shows from the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Blur, The 1975, Billy Joel and Lana Del Rey.
As a result of this, many have argued that it should be the larger arenas and stadiums and ticketing companies who would take on the levy, considering many tickets already come with a booking, facility and transaction fee.
John Drury, the Chair of the National Arenas Association and Vice-President and General Manager at OVO Arena Wembley, however, argued that the larger venues should not be made to foot the levy rather than artists opting in or out.
“We’re an ecosystem,” Drury told the hearing. “The recent posters showing the line-ups of Glastonbury and Reading with all of the artists [who came from grassroots music venues] taken out really speak volumes – not to the arenas so much but also the academy circuit and those venues further down the line that very much will rely on that grassroots circuit to build their career.”
He continued: “The reality of £1 per ticket for us, given the nature of many of our venues being managed by private landlords, city councils and charitable organisations, [is that] the impact would be something like a up to 20 per cent cut [in profits for the year].
“It’s not a few grains of sand – it’s significant. Our angle is more that this is a problem for the ecosystem, the industry as a whole, and that it goes right through at a live level to artists, managers, agents, crew, promoters, venues, and anyone associated with that system. We’re all very interdependent. It’s not for the venues or the promoters to pay; it’s an industry solution that we need to find.”
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Emma Wilkes
NME
