Access Denied

Young people are being excluded from the one art form they actually care about. That’s not policy — that’s neglect.

There’s a simple principle that most people, when asked, would say they agree with: culture should be accessible to everyone. Not just if you can afford it. Not just if you live near it. Not just if you’re old enough to drink a pint at the bar next to it. Everyone.

It’s a principle we apply without much hesitation to almost every form of culture in the UK. You can go to a play at 12. You can go to a ballet at 10. You can see an art exhibition at 8, a film screening at 5, a community poetry night at 15. Everywhere you look - theatres, arts centres, cinemas, comedy clubs - the general assumption is clear: if there's a bar on site, fine. Just make sure the bar knows who it’s serving. Culture itself isn’t something you have to be 18 to experience.

The Double Standard No One Talks About

Except when it comes to live music.

Walk into most grassroots music venues and you’ll find a licensing policy that says, bluntly: Over-18s only. It doesn’t matter if the bar is separate from the performance space. It doesn’t matter if the event is alcohol-free. It doesn’t matter if the band on stage is barely old enough to drive themselves there. The licensing rules treat music venues like they’re nightclubs. Not arts centres. Not theatres. Not even stadiums, weirdly enough.

Because here’s the real kicker: if you want to go to Wembley Stadium to see Taylor Swift and you’re 14, as far as the law is concerned no problem. If you want to go to the O2 Arena to see Billie Eilish and you’re 12, as far as licensing is concerned no problem. If you want to go to the Dog & Duck back room to see a local band for £5, absolutely not - unless you have ID or a very good fake moustache.

It makes no sense. The presence of a bar in a stadium or arena doesn’t trigger an automatic over-18s restriction. The presence of a bar in a theatre doesn’t. In an arts centre, it doesn’t. In a cinema, it doesn’t. We understand perfectly well that you can sell alcohol responsibly in a venue without denying under-18s access to the culture taking place there.

But when it comes to music venues, somewhere along the line we decided the default would be different. And that decision matters. Because it shapes who gets to participate. It shapes whose cultural lives are supported. It shapes whose futures we bother to build.

Music Is the Culture Most Young People Actually Choose

Music is the dominant cultural identifier for most young people. More than theatre. More than visual art. More than literature. The majority of teenagers would tell you, without hesitation, that music is how they express themselves, find community, understand the world.

We’re constantly talking about the importance of music education, about the value of creative careers, about the need to nurture the next generation of talent. And yet at the most basic level - the right to stand in a room, hear live music, feel part of a musical community - we’ve built a system that says: Come back when you’re old enough to drink.

We’re excluding young people from their own culture. We’re telling them they can only participate properly once they’ve crossed an arbitrary, outdated legal line - one that no other part of the cultural sector applies so rigidly.

And it’s not because we can’t manage it. We already manage it. Every single day in arenas, stadiums, arts centres, and theatres across the country.

Regulated as Risk, Not as Culture

It’s because the licensing framework - and crucially, the way it’s interpreted and enforced at local level - still sees music venues as problems to be controlled, not cultural spaces to be supported. It sees live music through the lens of risky nightlife, not accessible art. It regulates music for its potential to cause disorder, not its potential to build community. The legal system still fears your daughter might marry a Rolling Stone if we allow their ears to be exposed to the devil’s music. It sounds absurd. Because it is.

We end up with a situation where your local theatre can stage a musical where the cast necks six glasses of fake whisky in Act Two, and invite schools to a matinee - but your local venue can't let a 16-year-old come and see a sober, seated folk gig in case someone might buy them a pint.

If you tried to design a system that actively discouraged young people from accessing live music, you’d be hard pressed to come up with something more effective. And then we act surprised when the next generation feels disconnected from the live circuit. When artists say they have nowhere to start. When whole towns and cities lose their grassroots music networks and nobody rushes in to save them.

This Is a Choice. And It Can Be Reversed.

We don’t have to accept this. We can rewrite the rules. We can demand parity between live music venues and other cultural spaces.

Access to music isn’t a privilege for those old enough to drink. It’s a basic part of cultural citizenship. It’s a right - or it should be.

Changing this isn’t complicated. It requires leadership at national level. It requires licensing authorities to treat grassroots music venues like the cultural spaces they are - not as an afterthought, not as a nuisance, but as vital parts of our creative and economic life.

We can build a system that welcomes young people into live music spaces. We can give them the same right to experience culture that their counterparts in theatre, film, and visual arts already have. We can acknowledge, finally, that music is culture too.

Or we can carry on as we are, letting another generation grow up on Spotify playlists and TikTok clips, with no access to the stages, the spaces, the communities that make music live and breathe.

The choice isn’t about licensing. It’s about what we believe culture is for - and who it belongs to.