The fight to #SaveOurVenues continues
Music venues in the UK still have a long road to safety, despite a recent £1.57billion arts bailout from the government.
Last month, more than 1,500 artists and industry figures came together to call on the government to stop “catastrophic damage” to live music amid the COVID-19 pandemic in the launch of the #LetTheMusicPlay campaign.
However, Music Venue Trust CEO Mark Davyd is keen to stress that the #SaveOurVenues campaign is still ongoing and many of the UK’s grassroots gig spaces are still in need.
“Basically, at the moment we still need to take all of the venues through to the end of September,” Davyd told NME. “We’ve had some who were not successful in acquiring the Emergency Grassroots Music Venue Fund, we have some who weren’t eligible, and the other problem we have is that not every grassroots music venue is going to get funded. People need to be realistic. That’s going to be a big problem. We still have around 200 venues who aren’t eligible and we need to Crowdfund them until we can open them safely.
“We also have problems in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland because we’ll have to step in and help financially before their funding is released. There’s still work to do.”
Small live venues form a huge part of the UK music scene and are near and dear to many fan’s hearts. We hope support for the #SaveOurVenues campaign continues.
Reported By: Jessica Rowe
