Report shows “disaster” facing grassroots music venues: “The big companies and arenas are now going to have to answer for this”
A new report has been published showing the “disaster” that struck the UK’s grassroots music venues in 2023, with calls increasing for a ticket levy on larger arenas and investment from the wider industry.
Last year saw the Music Venue Trust deliver their first annual report at the Houses Of Parliament – warning grassroots gig spaces in the UK were “going over a cliff” without without urgent government action and investment from new large arenas. After the stark warning that the UK was set to lose 10 per cent of its grassroots music venues in 2023, the MVT and others from the sector ended the year by telling NME how 2023 was the “worst year for venue closures” while “no one in music industry seems to care”.
Now, the MVT have shared their full report into the state of the sector for 2023. Among the key findings into their “most challenging year”, it has been reported that last year saw 125 UK venues abandon live music and that over half of them had shut entirely – including the legendary Moles in Bath. Some of the more pressing constraints were reported as soaring energy prices, landlords increasing rate amounts, supply costs, business rates, licensing issues, noise complaints and the continuing shockwaves of COVID-19.
Overall, it was found that venues’ rent had increased by 37.5 per cent, with them operating at an average profit margin of just 0.5 per cent.
NME attended the launch event at Westminster last night (Wednesday January 24), where a stark image of the UK’s scene was painted – despite there clearly being a huge hunger for audiences who want to see live music.
“These venues are so important – partly because they are in these communities across the nations in large cities, small cities, towns and sometimes rural locations as well,” said MVT COO Beverley Whitrick, introducing the report at the House Of Commons. “One of the things that’s incredibly important about grassroots music venues is that they are geographically and economically accessible.
“The average ticket price in a grassroots music venue in the UK in the last year was £11.42. We know from many reports about the success of the music industry that large scale events, while successful and important, they’re not within reach of everyone. Part of what we believe is so important about grassroots music venues is accessibility to communities across the UK.
She added: “In fact, 23.6million people visited a grassroots music venue in the UK in 2023, which is an increase on the previous year. Sometimes people say to us when they ask about closures, ‘Is it that people are not interested in going anymore?’ Of course, that’s not the case at all.
“The wish to see artists, to connect with them in small spaces in local venues is as high as it’s ever been.”
MVT CEO Mark Davyd, meanwhile, voiced his “seething anger” that the threat to the UK’s grassroots music live scene had been allowed to become as grave as it has. He began at pointing to disparity in government funding.
“When we look at the distribution of public funding in this country, it is a fact that more than 80 per cent of public funding for music is going to opera and classical,” he said. “I don’t mind opera and classical, I’m just not sure they should get 80 per cent of all the tax money there is.”
However, Davyd didn’t put blame solely at the foot of the government, and pointed to the increasing campaign for larger arenas and stadiums to contribute back to the wider live ecosystem via a ticket levy, in a similar way to how the Premier League do in football.
“This is a disaster: 16 per cent of the grassroots music venues in this country closed in the last 12 months,” he said. “It’s just not good enough. I stood here 12 months ago, and I’m sorry to be Mystic Meg about this, but I said, ‘If the big companies in this industry don’t get their act together, then hundreds of venues will close’. And guess what? They didn’t get their act together and hundreds of venues have closed. So, I’m afraid you are now going to have to answer for this.
“Don’t go on the cover of Music Week, Billboard, IQ and all these other magazines telling us how brilliant 2023 was for live music when 125 communities lost access to live music that they love. It’s not good enough.”
The 125 venue closures come with a loss of 4,000 jobs, with 14,500 events no longer possible and 193,230 opportunities lost to musicians. This comes 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.
Davyd pointed to the closure of Bath Moles to illustrate what needs to be done, arguing that “no one could have run that place better” than the team who kept it at the “centre of the city’s creativity” for 45 years.
“You want to put on The Cure headlining 27 nights at The O2 arena? You better be investing in the place where The Cure started their career,” he said. “You want put on Ed Sheeran playing 27 festival dates? You better be paying so Bath Moles has got a future, because that’s where he started his career.
“We are losing the next generation of British talent because we can’t be bothered to get it right. We need to get it right. There is one thing worse than a government-mandated levy on arena and stadium tickets: that’s no money at all going into grassroots music.”
He also pushed that he was against “a government-mandated levy”, arguing that big companies should be actively stepping forward to help without being forced, as many have already. Back in October, Ticketmaster announced a new plan to allow its customers to contribute directly to the MVT. Independent ticketing company Skiddle also began donating 50p from every ticket sold towards saving grassroots music venues, The Piece Hall in Halifax launched an MVT donation scheme while Taxi app FREENOW pledged to give £1 from every journey in an effort to save grassroots music venues.
However, he argued that a government-enforced scheme would be necessary unless major arenas, stadiums, streaming platforms and record labels came out to get involved.
“We can do this, and if we will not do it then it isn’t acceptable to the communities across our country that their local access to music will close down,” he said. “They don’t want to drive 300 miles to watch Taylor Swift for £150. They want to walk down the road and see a band they haven’t seen before taking their first step and playing their first song, getting their career started. They want to see that band go up that ladder until they’re playing Wembley Stadium.”
He added: “If you’re in this music industry and you don’t understand, why don’t you go and do something else? Get out of the way. 164 times last year, venues had to come to our emergency response service who had to stop those venues closing down. We succeeded 80 per cent of the time. 150 were saved, but we have to have change now. We can’t let another Bath Moles close.”
Also speaking at the Westminster launch, MP Kevin Brennan – Chair of the all party Parliamentary group on music – highlighted the devastation of the UK’s grassroots music venues declining from 960 to 835 in 2023.
“Bath Moles alone nurtured some very well-known acts over the years in that kind of R&D way that small music venues can do,” he said. “Acts like The Cure, Radiohead, The Smiths, Eurythmics, Tears For Fears, Oasis, Pulp, Blur, Fat Boy Slim, Ed Sheeran – all those artists played that venue when they were on their way up in their careers.
“This number of closures reflects the combination of challenging issues that are faced by small music venues – whether that’s the rates, whether it’s VAT, whether it’s rising energy, whether it’s rent costs. If you look at the report, rent costs went up by an average of 37.5 per cent. That kind of cost increase is incredible for a small business, on a very marginal basis to bare.”
He added: “Grassroots music venues aren’t just a research and development part of the music industry, important though that is. They are a cultural treasure in themselves. It’s a place to go and hear new, original, exciting music, made by people from 16-60 and beyond – enriching our lives, reminding us what it is to be human together, to be moved emotionally and physically by music created not by AI, but by HI: human inspiration.”
Brennan along with Caroline Dinenage MP, will be leading an upcoming report and enquiry into grassroots venues by the cross-party Culture, Media and Sport Committee.
Speaking at last night’s event, Dinenage told gathered venue operators: “You do have to get in touch with your MPs and sell it to them. Make sure they fully understand what you’re going through. We know the ability that [music venues] have to engage, to inspire, to bring people together. There’s not substitute for live music.
“Our creative industries are our global superpower. We’re amazing at this stuff, and music is the absolute jewel in the crown. You can travel halfway around the world at the most obscure corners of the earth and people there will know and speak adoringly of our British musical talent – past and present. This doesn’t happen by accident and it doesn’t happen overnight. These stars were formed and honed in small music venues across the length and breadth of Britain. They’re a vital part of the pipeline.”
Noting the more “disturbing” elements of the MVT’s report, Dinenage said she’d “keep pushing the government” for action and for “more money” to go “further and faster”.
“We’re going to be calling for the sector as a whole to recognise the importance of cascading down some of the vast profits from the big, big venue into the vital parts of the pipeline,” she said.
She continued: “We want to hear about all the obstacles: everything from noise-related disputes, licensing issues, venue limitations, the ongoing financial constraints that venues operate under, and the extent to which some of the big venue operators and wider venues will recognise the need for the long-term change that is needed.
“You have the ability to reach out to communities. You can engage, you can inspire, you can educate, you can entertain, you can comfort, and you can empower like literally no one else.”
The demand for a levy on tickets to arena and stadium tickets is growing, with Scotland now “seriously considering” the move for £1 from every ticket sold to be invested back into grassroots music venues. Some critics have argued that it is unfair to the consumer to make already costly tickets more expensive, but Enter Shikari have proven that it can be done with their own scheme coming at no extra cost to fans on their 2024 arena tour.
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Andrew Trendell
NME
