Paul McCartney plays at the 100 Club in 2010, a historic Grassroots Music Venue that was threatened with closure. (Photo credit: ©2010 MPL Communications/MJ Kim)
Grassroots music venues in the UK are in trouble, and the MusicVenue Trust (MVT) aims to do something about it. The four-year-old organization has put together a “Manifesto for Music Venues” that it hopes will spur political action — and hopefully free up some federal funds to keep open clubs that support live music..
“This started out as a personal project of our CEO, Mark Dayvd, who is the co-owner of a grassroots music venue (GMV) in England called Tunbridge Wells Forum, and his partner, who were quite concerned, not just about the difficult position they were in as venue owners, but also how expensive it was to run one and the future and sustainability of their club if they were to step away,” said Beverley Whitrick, strategic director of the MVT.
“At the same time, they were looking around at other venues that were closing or being bought up for redevelopment into condos and talking with people in the music industry about how hard it was to make a living running a music venue.”
Looking forward to the June 8 snap general election, the MVT held a “Manifesto for Music?” panel last Thursday (May 18) to lay out the three planks of its platform for a group that included some members of the UK political establishment such as Baroness Maggie Jones (Labour), Joe Miller (Conservatives), Lord Tim Clement-Jones (Lib Dem) and Amelia Womack (Green).
Those three commitments the MTV is looking for are:
Reform Cultural Funding - Invest in GMV Infrastructure
Take Action to Increase and Reward Private Investment
Cut Red Tape and Reduce Costs
“Part of the difficulty of running these venues is that legislation is being created that is negative for them that nobody is talking about,” said Whitrick. “So the MVT was started as a voice of these disparate venues — many run by quirky people around the U.K. — that could unite to help them in the long-term goal of raising money to buy their buildings so if people want to retire they could be sustained as venues into the future and not subject to market forces that might see it as more beneficial to sell them to someone who will turn them into restaurants or apartments.”
The Manifesto notes that less than 3 percent of GMV have received any external funding over the past decade, with less than 1 percent going to below 500-capacity clubs.
Part of the group’s goal is discussing how to make the GMV’s more attractive as social investments after the group’s founders realized that the venues were being perceived more as bars than as culturally relevant arts venues.
Whitrick said the venues covered by the MVT contribute to a U.K. music industry that generates £4.1billion ($5.3 billion) to the U.K. economy on an annual basis. In a statement, Dayvd added. “In 2016, U.K. artists accounted for seven of the year’s top-10 best-selling artist albums in the world. If we want future UK musicians to continue to produce that music for us, they, and the technicians, crew, promoters, security who work with them, deserve world-class Grassroots Music Venues to create, develop and grow that music.”
Those huge figures might explain how the organization has gotten a boost from a number of prominent musicians, including Sir Paul McCartney, who said in a support statement: “Without the grassroots clubs, pubs and music venues, my career would have been very different. Artists need places to start out, develop and work on their craft and small venues have been the cornerstone for this. If we don’t support live music at this level then the future of music in general is in danger.”
The statistic that helped the MVT really get attention, though, was a survey the group did two years ago that found that 35 percent of the GMVs in London had closed between 2007 and 2015, a number that was a “real wake-up call” to people who thought of these types of music venues as a fluid, organic mass, with new ones popping up to replace the old ones as they shut down.
“We’re very lucky that the UK has a music heritage that has been organic and provided a place for the stars of tomorrow to grow,” said Whitrick. “But enthusiasm is not enough to pay the bills. The map [of closed venues in London] gave a sense of the demise of venues around the country, including some small towns, that if they lose a venue, they have nothing.” The MVT only had funds to do the survey of London, but Whitrick said the figures are indicative of a larger national trend.
At last week’s event, she said the MVT mostly wanted to ask the political parties to “get out of the way and stop making life difficult for those entrepreneurs who want to run these venues.” The MVT is looking to establish a Culture and Heritage Tax Relief to ease the burden on small venue owners, as well as expand the existing Research and Development Tax Relief to specifically include development of new talent.
With fewer than three percent of GMVs getting any government funding over the past decade, Whitrick said that audiences and artists are not getting the same kind of experience they might be getting in larger, more well-funded rooms. That led to a request for funding that has gotten some significant support from the technical side of the industry.
“What we need is a small amount of cash to make [these upgrades] and enable companies that are keen to invest in that get on board,” she said, nodding to the type of cultural funding that is typically lavished on the opera, ballet and other arts institutions. “If a small portion of that goes to GMVs, you would have a huge geographical reach because these venues are all across the UK; you would drastically improve the experience of what goes on there for the performer and audience.”
Whitrick said the figure the MVT is after is “not even one-tenth” of what the top arts organizations in the UK get on an annual basis, a number that would be enough to radically overhaul more than 100 GMVs. They are seeking £3.6 million ($4.7 million) in-kind and matching funds from manufacturers from the technical side of the industry — with commitments from the UK’s light and sound supplier White Light Ltd., as well as Martin, Shure, Yamaha and D&B Audiotechnik — who have offered their services below cost in order to help bridge the gap between large concert hall sound and lights and the inferior technical set-ups in GMVs. The MVT is looking for government to supply around £4.75 million ($6.1 million) in matching funds across five years to venues that are dedicated to developing up-and-coming artists.
“We’ve gone about it in two ways,” she said. “We’ve gone directly to the government and also made an application to Arts Council England for a pilot project for the first 11 venues, and we’re currently waiting on their decision.” The math in favor of MVT’s requests, she said, is pretty simple: for every £10 ($12) spent at a GMV, £17 ($22) is spent elsewhere in the nighttime economy on bars, restaurants, public transport and taxis and the average GMV in the UK invests more than £300,000 ($388,000) every year in presenting new artists.
The MVT has gotten some support from a handful of British MP’s including, Kerry McCarthy, who said in a statement, “Small venues have always played a fundamental role in breaking and nurturing new music – their survival is important for ensuring that successful bands continue to emerge from the grassroots. Critically, they also help sustain the cultural scenes and creative economies of many towns and cities, creating employment and attracting people into city centres.”
With their requests in place, Whitrick said the MVT is now looking at tax cuts to spur investment and moving to get GMVs treated more like traditional arts organizations. “The takeaway was that for a relatively young organization, even if we don’t get direct results, the issues are now being recognized and talked about,” she said. “Whereas, in the past, it would only be a discussion about concert halls and theaters. Now it’s about turning words into action and getting politicians to actually do something.”