At Music Venue Trust, we’ve always had one clear goal: protect, secure and improve Grassroots Music Venues.
Over the past ten years, that goal has taken us into thousands of conversations - with venue operators, artists, promoters, local authorities, funders, policymakers, landlords, licensing officers, sound engineers, lawyers, communities, journalists and fans. We’ve written reports. We’ve lobbied governments. We’ve launched emergency campaigns. And we’ve supported hundreds of individual venues through some of the toughest circumstances imaginable.
But underneath all of that activity, a single question has been ticking away in the background, guiding the way we work and the way we think.
What would it take to actually fix this?
Not patch it up. Not carry it through for another six months. Not delay closure by another financial quarter. But genuinely fix it.
That question has become the foundation of the proposals we have now taken to the LIVE Trust - the new body established to distribute revenue raised by the music industry from the £1 Grassroots Levy on arena and stadium shows.
The Levy is an extraordinary opportunity. It was created with the support of venues, promoters, artists, fans and industry voices because of a shared belief that the foundations of live music in the UK need urgent attention. That belief isn’t abstract. It’s based on what we’ve all seen: The loss of venues. The collapse of local circuits. The reduction of touring. The growing inequality in who can access live music, and who can afford to participate in it.
The Grassroots Levy is not a solution in itself. It’s just a tool and what matters is how it is used. And right now, we believe it has to be used in two ways: first, to deal with the urgent reality in front of us. Then, to build something that means we don’t keep ending up back here.
First: We act on what’s already happening.
There are venues right now - today - that are in danger of closing. Not because they’re badly run or because they’ve made reckless decisions. Just because of the cost of energy, the legacy of debt, and the sudden unexpected shocks that come with operating on margins as thin as this sector has been forced to live with for far too long.
The Music Venue Trust Venue Support Team works every day to prevent closures - providing expert advice in planning, licensing, noise, acoustics, finance, legal and leasehold protection. This isn’t a theoretical service, it’s been the front-line defence for over 1,000 venues in the last decade. It needs stable, predictable funding to do what it already does and to make sure that service is available to everyone that needs wherever they are in the country.
Alongside that, we know that some situations can’t be fixed with advice alone. Sometimes, a venue has fallen just far enough into crisis that one unpaid bill, one flood, one lease dispute, one tax demand could push it out of existence. That’s why alongside funding the Venue Support Team we have proposed to LIVE Trust that continued and structured investment in the Emergency Hardship Relief Fund is sadly still needed; small, targeted grants with audit requirements and financial oversight, used only when closure is otherwise certain and when a single grant can make a difference.
These two interventions - the Support Team and EHRF - aren’t about the transformation we all want to see. They’re about making sure that venues survive while we deliver that change. And let’s be clear; we can measure the success of the second of these interventions because if we do everything else strategically there shouldn’t be any need for sizeable Emergency Hardship Relief in two or three years time. There will always be a few cases, but if we collectively invest this new income into strategic change the tidal wave of cases we have experienced in the last few years should slow to a trickle.
Next: We choose what kind of future we want for the grassroots sector.
Beyond the immediate need, there is a second level of work that the Levy can unlock. This is where the strategy comes in. Because once we’ve stabilised the sector, we have a decision to make. Do we let things slowly drift back to the same fragile normal that got us into this mess in the first place, propping up a broken system with eternal subsidies, or do we start addressing the real reasons why so many venues, promoters and artists have struggled for so long?
That’s where the next stage begins. And that’s where our guiding principle takes shape:
Don’t just fund problems. Fix them.
We believe that means moving beyond relief and into repair.
Our proposals to make the positive change we need starts with the Venue MOT - a strategic review for venues that aren’t in immediate danger but know they can’t keep running as they are. These are the operators who’ve survived, just about, but don’t have time or capacity to assess how to stabilise, improve, or grow. The MOT process gives them a road map. It turns firefighting into future planning, backed by experts and the best practice guidance availability from everything we have learned from the sector in the last ten years.
Artists have told us they can’t afford to tour. Not because the desire isn’t there - but because the costs of food, fuel, crew, accommodation and unpaid travel days have made it impossible. We’ve seen incredible artists play one show in a city and drive home four hours after midnight because there was no money to stay overnight. We’ve heard from artists who cancelled tours because the financial gap was too big to justify. So we’re proposing capital investment in artist focused facilities; accommodation, kitchens, showers, utility rooms. Simple, safe, accessible spaces at venues themselves or in nearby spaces that remove the need for hotel costs entirely, reduce food bills, and properly support touring artists and crews with good facilities.
Technical staff have told us they’re being trained on digital desks and modern lighting rigs, but then arrive in grassroots venues to find outdated, hard-to-use equipment they’ve never worked with before. That mismatch is forcing early-career technicians to step back from GMV work. So we’re proposing targeted grants to upgrade core technical infrastructure, making shows better and venues more welcoming and workable for the next generation of talent behind the scenes, while improving the artist and audience experience.
The fastest rising cost in the ecosystem of the last four years has been energy, which has long ago spiraled out of affordability. We have put forward a major intervention which would support local energy generation to remove venues from the grid, basket together venues unable to host solar panels and significantly reduce their costs, and explore ways to take the sector into carbon neutrality and away from the greedy and excessive charges they currently endure.
Promoters have told us they are taking enormous personal risk on every show - sometimes for a return of £30 or £40. That they are working harder than ever but losing money because one weekend of poor turnout wipes out a whole month of progress. So we’re proposing to expand our successful range of live projects and bring them together under a stronger and wider partnership between venues, promoters, artists, and agents called Liveline. It’s a national touring programme that pays the artist, covers the venue, and removes the financial risk from the promoter, while still rewarding experience, professionalism and hard work. And as with all of our live music work so far, it will make sure that artists that need to build audiences in secondary and tertiary markets have the support they need to do so.
Venue operators - some of the most committed, passionate and principled people in the music world - have told us again and again that the problem isn’t audience interest, or artist demand. It’s the landlord. The lease. The threat of eviction. The rent increase. The redevelopment notice. The unfixable structural issue they can’t get funding to address. So we’re proposing that the LIVE Trust supports the established long-term solution: Buy the buildings. Take them out of commercial ownership. Remove the landlord from the equation. Place them into the protected trust, Music Venue Properties, that secures them permanently for cultural use.
These are not new ideas. These are the things we’ve been working on, delivering, and refining for years - in pilot form, in emergency form, in sector-wide strategy.
This year, we’ve brought them together into a single portfolio. A joined-up, national offer. Strategic, deliverable, and rooted in lived experience. This is what we have taken to the LIVE Trust and asked them to support.
We are not saying that our model is the only one. We know there are other organisations doing brilliant work, with different perspectives, different ideas, and different delivery models. We welcome that with open arms because different perspectives and ambitions make the whole sector stronger. The Grassroots Levy is not about finding a “winner” to deliver a single solution that miraculously fixes everything. It is about working together to create a strategic framework that can support a range of interventions that deliver the change we need. There is plenty enough funding to support multiple approaches, and we want to see those approaches funded and supporting the ecosystem. But this is the approach we are taking, the one we believe, based on our experience, is right for the grassroots venues, promoters, and artists that we have supported for the last decade.
Our plans is built on years of direct delivery, shaped by the sector and informed by our partners. And it is built on a clear idea of what needs to happen next.
That’s what we’re proposing. Not a series of projects that uses subsidies to fund the sector’s challenges, but a plan to stop the cycle of crisis and to actually fix the problems. To make venues stronger. To enable people to take risks. To make touring viable. To make careers sustainable. And to make the national circuit work again.
The Grassroots Levy is a powerful tool. What matters now is what we do with it.
Let’s take this opportunity. Let’s fix it.
I am just so happy to read this post and all of the other ones that you have posted. Can’t quite believe there isn’t a bigger audience for these posts and reposting because when someone writes with such authority and knowledge on their subject matter. Please do keep updating us because I for one absolutely love reading about what is going on behind the scenes to save our beloved live scene in this country. I am retired and would love to help out and do my bit to help.