Music Venue Properties have introduced plans to save lots of and safe the way forward for an additional seven UK grassroots gig areas via neighborhood possession – and you’ll be a part of it.
Final 12 months noticed the UK lose one music venue each fortnight, with current warnings that the speed would enhance to at least one per week in 2025 with out pressing authorities motion – solely including to regional areas affected by what’s been referred to as “the whole collapse of touring”.
Over the previous few years, there was an elevated name for music venues to personal their very own buildings to stop them from being kicked out by landlords. Because of this, the Music Venue Properties scheme has been shopping for up buildings for beloved gig areas and is now stepping up its efforts in what’s been described as a “Nationwide Belief for music venues” scheme.
The following section of its groundbreaking ‘Personal Our Venues’ undertaking will see them enhance the variety of benevolent landlords for music venues throughout the UK, guaranteeing these areas have the longevity to plan for future. Thus far, £2.88million has been raised with MVP shopping for 5 venues throughout the UK.
“These venues won’t ever shut – they are going to be there without end,” Music Venue Belief CEO Mark Davyd stated at a launch occasion at Brighton’s The Nice Escape earlier this month. Trying to ‘section two’, he continued: “We’re going to be shopping for a number of the most iconic venues within the nation, and also you generally is a shareholder in Personal Our Venues. Each single considered one of it’s best to have a share.
“For £100, you possibly can be a co-owner within the 5 venues they already personal and now they’re going to place that cash right into a pot and purchase seven extra venues.”
The venues up for grabs are The Lubber Fiend inNewcastle, Nottingham’s Peggy’s Skylight, The Pipeline in Brighton, Stoke’s legendary The Sugarmill the world well-known Bedford Esquires and the historic Joiners in Southampton. The seventh venue is one which’s really being restored and returned.
“The music neighborhood are the individuals who ought to personal these buildings – not landlords on some distant tax exile haven,” Davyd continued. “You’re keen on these buildings so it’s best to personal them. It’s a radical concept, but it surely’s the one one which is smart and can finally cease these venues from closing down.
“What concerning the locations which have misplaced venues and the music they love? The seventh venue is one we’re bringing again. We’re re-opening The Croft in Bristol.”
The Personal Our Venues initiative focuses on eradicating grassroots music venues from weak business leases by putting them into neighborhood possession to “present long-term stability to venues which are important for fostering native expertise and offering cultural worth to present, native infrastructure”
Venues saved by the scheme to this point embrace The Comfortable in Atherton, The Ferret in Preston, Le Pub in Newport, The Bunkhouse in Swansea and The Reserving Corridor in Dover. Now, MVP need to save additional venues with a ‘cultural lease’ that “offers long-term safety by providing stability that typical business leases” and “guarantee truthful, sustainable lease, annual contributions towards important upkeep, and ongoing help in areas resembling monetary sustainability and operational greatest apply”.
“We welcome Music Venue Properties’ possession of our constructing as the one actual resolution to securing one of the crucial necessary stay music venues within the UK,” stated Ricky Bates, Venue Operator of The Joiners, Southampton stated. “For nearly 60 years, The Joiners has been a significant a part of the UK touring circuit and a inventive cornerstone of Southampton, however right this moment its future is unsure. Our lease expires this 12 months, our landlord is retiring and, whereas the venue is wealthy in historical past, the constructing is over 200 years outdated and in want of care.
“In right this moment’s economic system, it merely isn’t viable for us as people to buy the property however, with the help of the Personal Our Venues marketing campaign and the broader music neighborhood, we will safe The Joiners for the subsequent 60 years and past. Be a part of this historic second – become involved and assist shield grassroots music for generations to return.”
Gareth Barber, Director of Bedford Esquires added: “Sadly, we face the actual prospect of Bedford not having this venue inside the subsequent 5 years. Our landlord has determined to retire and we’re unable to increase the lease. The truth is the venue sits on prime growth land and any potential purchaser will undoubtedly wish to do the unthinkable. With out being a part of this initiative, there isn’t any possible means of having the ability to increase sufficient cash to maintain the venue for the city, which might rip the guts out of the neighborhood. With MVP behind us we will proceed to develop, with a strong basis for our future.”
Chief Working Officer of MVP Matthew Otridge defined how “the important thing menace to the grassroots music venue sector has all the time been that of property possession”.
“Over 90 per cent of GMVs are tenants and are sometimes in a weak place once they and their landlords don’t share the identical targets,” he revealed. “It’s a bleak statistic however 35 per cent of venues have closed within the final 20 years and in 2024 one other 86 both closed or now not operated as GMVs.”
Otridge stated that the stay music sector was “standing at a crossroads however there’s a resolution”.
“Folks will help us to place in place actual, sustainable options,” he added. “Music Venue Properties has proven in simply three years that neighborhood possession can safe and protect venues completely, and this success has led us to establish new alternatives to buy a number of the UK’s greatest liked, longest-running venues and to launch our second share supply to safe these key cultural areas.”
A second neighborhood share supply to assist save these venues is open now and can shut on July 31, 2025. Go to right here for extra data and to become involved.
This comes as Richard Hawley not too long ago referred to as for the legislation to be modified on music venue possession, following the lack of The Leadmill in Sheffield below new landlords who bought the freehold however vow to maintain it operating as “a cornerstone of the stay music scene in Sheffield, supporting artists, followers, and neighborhood tasks for the subsequent 100 years”.
Earlier this month noticed musicians and business leaders collect at a authorities listening to into the state of UK grassroots music, the place it was warned that not sufficient progress was being made in saving venues and new artists through the proposed ticket levy for gigs at enviornment stage and above.
