UK Government announces review to tackle grassroots music venue crisis

The UK government has announced details of a new review, which will tackle the issues faced by grassroots music venues.

Announced today (October 20), the details of the report were launched by the cross-party Culture, Media and Sport Committee — which scrutinises the work of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and its associated public bodies.

In the upcoming hearing and report, the committee will look into the current issues faced by grassroots music venues across the UK, and look to provide more support to the venue owners.

The new initiative comes in light of the ongoing grassroots music venue crisis, which is set to see 10 per cent of the UK’s smaller venues close by the end of 2023.

The plans for the new review were shared by DCMS Select Committee Chair Caroline Dinenage MP, and a full report of its findings will be published next year. Dinenage has also confirmed that a call for evidence will be made in the near future with written submissions invited.

It will further see witnesses called to parliament, to enable the committee to understand the current crisis and make recommendations to all stakeholders on how to address it.

“One of the pillars during my campaign to become the Chair of the DCMS Select Committee was to say that we need to do a full review of grassroots music venues in the UK, the challenges that they are facing, but also what the opportunities are and what more we can do to support them. And that’s what our committee has agreed to do,” said Dineage, speaking at Music Venue Trust’s (MVT) annual ‘Venues Day’ conference in London this week.

“One of the pillars during my campaign to become the Chair of the DCMS Select Committee was to say that we need to do a full review of grassroots music venues in the UK, the challenges that they are facing, but also what the opportunities are and what more we can do to support them. And that’s what our committee has agreed to do,” she added.

“We will be announcing a call for evidence quite soon, and then probably just after Christmas, we’ll start taking live evidence from people as well. We will then work to produce a full report and to put forward recommendations. It will be recommendations not just to the government, but also to the industry and recommendations for local authorities.”

At the event, former DCMS Select Committee Chair Kevin Brennan MP added that the new initiative “wasn’t really on the policy agenda five years ago”, however, the MVT “has been instrumental in changing that”.

Following the plans for the new report coming to light, Mark Davyd, CEO of Music Venue Trust said: “We are grateful to Caroline and the other members of the DCMS Select Committee for focusing their efforts on the myriad challenges facing grassroots music venues. The threat to this vital sector of our cultural life has never been more acute and we look forward to assisting the process and to seeing the recommendations they put forward.”

The action from the UK government comes following the MVT penning an open letter to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt in September, demanding that the UK Government extends business rate relief for its members after 78 music venues closed their doors over the last 12 months, and many more were set to follow. Davyd also spoke to NME about how the situation was “as dire as it can be”.

Further, just last week the Music Venue Trust insisted that grassroots venues need “action not kind words” – adding that they are headed for a “disaster” without arenas helping pay into the ecosystem.

Earlier this week, taxi app FREENOW announced a new initiative to help save grassroots music venues – confirming that it would be donating £1 from every ride to the cause.

A similar approach was shown by Enter Shikari earlier this year too, when the band announced that they would be donating £1 from every ticket sold to their upcoming UK and Ireland arena tour to benefit the Music Venue Trust.

Additionally, on October 10, Ticketmaster announced details of a new Music Venue Trust charity upsell option – enabling fans to make direct contributions to MVT when purchasing tickets for upcoming concerts, and Halifax Piece Hall announced a scheme that will support grassroots music venues in Calderdale borough through the Pipeline Investment Fund.

In other news about the efforts from the Music Venue Trust, at the start of the month it was reported that MVT had announced the first acquisition under its public ownership scheme –  a 100-capacity venue in Atherton, Greater Manchester called The Snug.

Described as like “The National Trust, but for venues”, the scheme received backing from Ed Sheeran, and aims to secure the long-term futures of such venues by directly tackling the issue of ownership.