The Music Venue Trust (MVT) have written an open letter to Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, as more than one independent venue in the UK is closing every week, a situation they call “as dire as can be”. The open letter can be found here.
Last week, the Music Venue Trust revealed that 67 venues had closed so far in 2023 and the trust estimates that 100 venues will be closed by the end of the year, constituting for 10 per cent of the independent venues in the country.
The Music Venue Trust have been pushing big music industry players like major record labels and the country’s arena venues to pump more money into the independent music venue industry.
With this open letter, the Music Venue Trust has doubled down on this push by asking the UK Government to extend business relief for its members.
MVT CEO Mark Davyd told NME “Between us finishing our report at Friday at 5pm and coming back at 10am on Monday morning, two more venues closed,”. The venues reference were Jimmy’s in Liverpool and The Brass in Hastings, two venues which closed across the weekend.
Davyd continued, saying: “Our report shows that we’ve gone from 960 venues in October of last year to 835 that are actually operating. That’s 125 less and a 15.7 per cent decline. Venues haven’t just closed down, but some of them have also given up putting on live music. The only way that they could afford to survive was to stop putting on live music and start selling pizzas.”
“On top of that, there is the current relief of 75 per cent off business rates. That’s due to end on March 31, which means that venues will go back to paying the business rates they were paying in 2018. Without a doubt, that will see the sector collapse because there is no way that they can afford to pay it. That’s £15million in extra costs.”
Davyd is also pushing for the wider music industry, especially in the live music scene, to have a “major intervention” regarding the extreme issues independent music venues are facing. About this he said: “There’s going to have to be movement from the industry itself too. They can’t just sit around making oceans of money and declaring this to be the greatest year ever for live music, all while venues are closing down every day.”
“There have been 120 emergency response cases so far this year, and there are 60 live cases today from venues that are at risk of closing down. I don’t think people have really understood. When this happens, the impact rolls out everywhere. If there are 20 per cent less venues to play in next year, then that will mean that some tours just can’t happen.”
“These venues are all over the UK, and everything is in complete free-fall. It’s as dire as it can be. It’s not possible to exaggerate it at this point.”
