The UK charity Music Venue Trust has published a manifesto entitled ‘A Manifesto For Grassroots Music’ today ahead of the UK general election which will take place on the 4th of July. The report signifies that it’s purpose is in ‘Protecting, Securing, and Improving the UK’s Grassroots Music Venues’ and emphasises that this is ‘a once in a generation opportunity to save the UK’s grassroots music venues’.
The MVT announced the report on their twitter earlier today as well as encouraged people to write to their prospective MPs.
DOWNLOAD and read the full Manifesto for Grassroots Music: https://t.co/auSonGEoNI
SHARE this post to your social media with the hashtag #VoteForMusic.
WRITE to the prospective MPs in your constituency and ask them to commit to the Manifesto for Grassroots Music. pic.twitter.com/MK5TBDmDfv
— Music Venue Trust (@musicvenuetrust) June 11, 2024
In the report, the MVT have outlined 5 major initiatives they are urging parliament to act on including their £1 ticket levy initiative which would ensure that large arenas and stadiums would contribute at least £1 from every ticket sold towards supporting grassroots music venues, artists and promoters; an initiative that the charity proposed last month in their … report. The levy would affect all events in these venues that have a capacity over 5,000. The other items on the report are as follows; A fan-led review to fully examine the long-term challenges to the live music ecosystem which would establish a representative voice for those who live music depends on, the agent of change principle in the ‘National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) to be put on a statutory footing at the earliest opportunity’, a reduction in VAT on cultural ticketing in GMV (grassroots music venues) to 0% for the time being until these revered but overlooked venues have stimulated enough growth to be able to stand on their feet as well as creating a ‘specific business rates premises definition’ s for GMVs and the removal of properties satisfying that definition from the requirement to pay business rates’
According to an article from Rolling Stone, Sophie Brownlee, the External Affairs Manager at MVT, stated that ‘The Manifesto is being delivered to every prospective MP in the country with the request that they come out in support of it as part of their campaign to be elected,’. This manifesto follows a number of other measures proposed by the charity including ‘The Artist Pledge’ which asks artists to ‘pledge that their future success will acknowledge acknowledge where they came from and contribute a small amount of money back into the grassroots sector, if and when they reach arena and major festival level’. This is in order to secure the sustainability of the GMV sector and ensure that the ecosystem created is supporting all artists and allowing the successes of once grassroots artists should continue to trickle down to those that come after them.
Grassroots venues have been experiencing mass closure in the last few years partly due to the pandemic with, as MVT CEO Mark Davyd stated, more than one venue closing every week in 2023. To put it into perspective ‘of the 366 small music venues Sheeran played while learning his trade, at least 150 are now closed’ signalling the need for a drastic change in the industry t guarantee there is still an industry in the near future.
You can read the full manifesto which was released today by following the link here as well as check out the rest of the MVT website to find out more about ‘The Artist Plegde’ and the array of other work the charity are doing.
