The budget speech you wanted to hear, the one where the Government actually delivered the radical approach to culture and creative industries they keep talking about.
".....Music Touring Relief, replacing the requirement for twelve instrumentalists with a requirement for twelve people in total involved in the production and organisation of the concert....."
Interesting idea but surely the vast majority of MVT etc 'grassroots'-small venues deal with bands and artists who are maybe 5 or 6 people involved at most. Often fewer and certainly not twelve (12). How would such an extension of the Orchestral Relief benefit artists using MVT venues?
So, nowhere in these proposals do the artists and bands who play -and by extension help populate and drive on-sales of drink and food- the venues receive any direct assistance of benefit other than any 'trickle-down' that a venue or promoter might discretionarily offer...and we know all too well that doesn't happen.
The suggestion is every person or organisation or building gets relief except the artist.
Well, on the issue of Music Touring Relief the change is aimed at recognising the full team required for a show to happen; the agent, booker, promoter etc. Most of all though - two bands? However, I would see no harm in arguing for a lower number if you felt that was a good idea.
In terms of who benefits from these proposals, I’m afraid I’m going to strongly disagree with your assertion that artists would not benefit from a decrease in VAT or changes to alcohol duty, or indeed Business Rates. The costs of shows is borne by every element on an event, tickets, bar, food. Preserving the value of those elements so it supports the people involved in delivering each event and not third party costs will result in more money for everyone.
Would be good to see a list like this from an artist perspective though!
Many bands (singular) touring or gigging don't have agents, they self-promote.
I work with many bands and artists (solo/duo) who get nowhere near 12 even with agent+ promoter.
Trying to tie-in local one-off supports is a logistical headache too far for most self-promoting touring artists or bands.
And a band dealing with the paper work and accounting for any relief....interesting.
How 'directly' would a band benefit from reductions in VAT or duty or rates? Those benefit only the venue who will be seeking to increase their margins give the current low rate you mention.
The cost of the delivery of the event is incidental if the bands or artists can't afford to tour.
None of the otherwise worthy and aspirational suggestions assist an artist or band.
Indeed the words artist or band don't figure in any of the four suggestions you make for reliefs other than in so far Orchestral Relief might be reduced to assist bands or artists touring with a total of twelve. I regularly tour with bands and we have never got near twelve.
Just read all of the posts between the two of you and, as much as I don’t understand a lot of it coming from a lay perspective on a lot/all of this, I love the passion and willingness to continue forging ahead on this whole subject. There will probably be ‘raised eye’ moments that both of you will have experienced from each others comments that will be new learning to use to add to the mix of this, to me at least, complex problem. This can all be used for the greater good as we are all fighting for the same side, so keep the dialogue and posts flowing. Debating this issue with passion is what we need to see from not only yourselves, but many others too. It all starts with people like me reading the above and realising that this is as serious as it gets and helping to spread the message far and wide.
1. I haven’t been to a show in at least thirty years where there were less than 12 total performers/crew/techies. I apologies if I haven’t designed this relief to support your specific model where there are apparently less people than that working the show, but it could be adjusted so that you could benefit from it in isolation if for some reason you don’t play shows delivered by twelve people in total or you would prefer not to receive tax benefits as part of a collective claim.
2. PACSTR is a policy mentioned above that would give artists the ability to claim for technical crew at full wages relief.
3. You’re going to have to forgive me if my focus on music venues means I write about music venues. These are my policy suggestions for music venues, I’m sorry if that wasn’t clear. If you have a focus on artists then I’d love to hear what policies you would put forward to support that cause.
4. I don’t understand why you think VAT off tickets wouldn’t help artists who receive a percentage of ticket sales. You’re going to need to explain that, I genuinely can’t see why that wouldn’t help artists as much as it helps promoters and venues; in fact, more so.
5. Still don’t agree with your premise that artists won’t benefit if venues and promoters benefit, sorry.
I support you on venues and have regularly attended events where you have spoken eloquently in support of them.
Without bands and artists the ecosystem you seek to support with reliefs and policies is non-existent without those who make the music and draw audiences.
Any approach to supporting the ecosystem ought properly to include support for those artists and bands who want to come and play and either cannot at all or can do so in only ever-reducing frequencies or numbers of gigs.
You are of course right to support venues and that is the purpose of MVT, but when you set out proposals for policies and reliefs which venture beyond just venues as buildings and seek to include workers and organisations across the wider ecosystem then I do not think I'm in the wrong to ask how you propose to support those you've missed out, namely the artists and bands without which...
That aside:
1. Tone noted.
I have been to many gigs over my multiple decades in 'the business' where there are fewer than 12 (or 10 even) performers, 'crew' (a luxury for many solos or duos and even bands) + a sound tech (who might double up as lighting and is usually a venue appointee, invariably compulsory).
How it would be possible to operate and administer a Music Touring Relief where the separate elements - headline act (solo/duo/band) + support + sound tech + promoter + agent (if there was one) - are all individual or small organisation businesses taxed and invoicing separately and whom may not be the same people at each event on a short tour I simply can't envisage.
The sheer complexity of a 'collective claim' would cause the vast majority of bands or artists to give up in despair as almost certainly access to costly expert assistance for such artists would be unlikely if not impossible. Such advice would be just another unaffordable and time-consuming cost.
2. "Would give artists..."
Artists and bands are *not* mentioned in your comment on this relief. *Only* venues and 'operators' are specifically mentioned by you.
Even if artists had been included my response would be the same as to 1. above.
I shall repeat, administration and operation of such a relief by a band operating in the MVT/grassroots environment without expensive expert assistance is simply not going to happen whether as part of a 'collective claim' or not.
Having an 'ability' to access such relief doesn't make it happen and like many such reliefs in the tax 'code' would be largely unused.
3. Tone noted.
You are going to have to forgive me if my focus on touring and gigging artists and bands means I respond about the need to directly support them.
You've suggested policies and reliefs which *directly* benefit all of the other individuals and organisations and buildings in the music performance chain, but nothing explicitly benefiting artists *directly*.
After-the-event reliefs -even if administratively realistic (which they won't be given the nature and extent of the requirements of all tax legislation and HMRC Manuals)- are not going to encourage bands to tour.
Turning the question on me is deflection, but then as I say above I have regularly attended events where you have spoken eloquently.
4. Marginal gains, whilst welcome, will not make gigs for artists let alone tours profitable or even breakeven.
5. We will have to agree to disagree as to the extent of any benefit. Marginal changes around the edges are highly unlikely to enable a band to book a tour with any greater confidence of breaking even, let alone profiting.
Gigs in many of the smaller/grassroots/MVT venues is essentially loss-making for the vast majority of touring artists, and as I am sure you are aware many gigs and tours get cancelled because bands simply can't make the figures stack up even if they sell out the gigs.
addendum -
-- given the large amounts of cash dispensed by ACE etc to venues during the 'pandemic' I have seen little of that cash utilised *directly* for the benefit of the artists in the years since
-- shiny new air-con, new lighting rigs, new sound systems are great for the venue and the audience and for the bands/artists, yet the facilities *directly* used by artists/bands?
and yet...
-- 'Green' (never green; usually dirty and paint-flaking and tiny if not non-existent) rooms or toilet & changing facilities were invariably overlooked for improvement or maintenance,
-- equipment and personal baggage storage remained non-existent or inadequate.
-- merch space non-existent or out of the way of exiting audience,
We fundamentally disagree on a number of these areas. I think that’s fine and I’m still keen to hear ideas from you or anyone else about policies that you believe would support artists directly.
I believe these measures would support everybody and everybody would benefit. You don’t agree. That seems okay to me, but I think if you disagree you should perhaps put forward alternative ideas. You say artists won’t benefit fromu these ideas, which I disagree with, let’s hear alternative ideas. And venues received money during Covid to avoid closure. It is factually wrong to say they spent it on new lighting systems, sorry. I’m not going to list exactly where the money went in a hugely long post about rent demands, debt, taxes, I’m just going to be blunt and say that your presentation of those outcomes is fundamentally incorrect.
MVT has presented plans to improve artist facilities at venues as a priority, including accommodation, just as a side note.
I don’t know what ‘Tone Noted’ is meant to indicate. I’m telling you honestly that I don’t agree with what you’re posting. If you’re reading a tone into that you disapprove of, maybe it’s that you don’t like having me disagree with you?
This is a very inspiring post, you painted the whole process so reachable.
If I may point on one detail: the highest VAT on concert tickets is in Hungary, that is 27%, which makes the Hungarian promoters very uncompetitive on international level and taking off more then the quarter of all venues’ ticket income. Add the 9% PRS (while Live Nation gets the discounted 4% PRS rate).
Also I forgot to add that a certain Ticket Platform now charges a Ticket Processing Fee on top of their Booking Fee - which is not shown at all on the Ticket Price Page of their Event Builder.
What a post that is and, as I have said before, it’s essential that we have someone like you Mark who understands all of the complexities of this problem. I’m genuinely concerned now that they will not see this decline in grassroots culture as something to move up the agenda. Is it a case of budget done and no room for tweaks/changes? Can they really be asleep at the wheel that much on this issue? I applaud you Mark and love watching the regular MVT update videos ‘The Last Safe Space’.
For some small shows we put on recently, out of the ticket purchase price 27% went to Platform Booking Fee / Venue Levy Fee / PRS. In a market where there is no choice but to use online ticket Agencies some of those Agencies have gone way past the 10% that they originally started at. In addition some have started to hide their booking fees and don't show any venue levy so the perception is that the Promoters/Artists are making more more than they are from the sale of tickets. Their lack of tranparency is designed to hide their excessive booking fees. These Agencies make big profits. At the same time we are finding that some Venues with a significant Venue levy fee have exclusivity agreements with Agencies thus taking a cut of their booking fee and the Ticketing Platform further increases their Fee's to cover this - which the Promoter and Artists pay for. Its time to look at alternatives to combat these practices. Could the industry at least partly bring Online Ticketing in-house so to speak. Could MVT & PRS work together to set up a Ticketing Platform? Existing Ticketing Agencies may hold data from previous shows but the reality is that most leads come from Artsists Socials / Mail Outs and other platforms such as Bands In Town. In the transition period promoters could contine to place smaller allocations with existing ticket platforms to access those data sets - it's also the case that some Agencies are asking for paid promotions to access these data sets. Just a Sunday morning rant/thought!
Hi John. I completely agree with your last sentence, but you've started this response with the word 'extortionate' which I would strongly suggest is the wrong way to approach it. We need to all work together and we won't be able to do that if the very basic needs of the venue, money they are compelled to try and raise just to survive, is viewed from the outset as 'extortionate'.
The costs of opening a venue have soared through no fault of the venue or of the promoter. An open and frank discussion about that is long overdue, because whatever the venue is charging you in venue hire I can almost guarantee is not representing anything like the real costs to them of opening and providing you the space. I completely agree with your view on deductions of VAT, and PRS deductions is a very long running conversation that must be brought to a conclusion with a new Tariff actually suitable for the grassroots sector. Venues adopt practices you would like them not to, like ticketing and levies, because they cannot survive without them. Nobody is trying to 'extort' anybody else, we are all in the same very difficult boat.
There are venues in London charging £300 in venue hire when their costs to be open per night are in excess of £1000. I'm not trying to tell you off or correct you by saying that openly, I'm using it to indicate that we should have a genuine, honest, open discussion about it, and that doesn't happen if people feel they are being accused of something.
".....Music Touring Relief, replacing the requirement for twelve instrumentalists with a requirement for twelve people in total involved in the production and organisation of the concert....."
Interesting idea but surely the vast majority of MVT etc 'grassroots'-small venues deal with bands and artists who are maybe 5 or 6 people involved at most. Often fewer and certainly not twelve (12). How would such an extension of the Orchestral Relief benefit artists using MVT venues?
So, nowhere in these proposals do the artists and bands who play -and by extension help populate and drive on-sales of drink and food- the venues receive any direct assistance of benefit other than any 'trickle-down' that a venue or promoter might discretionarily offer...and we know all too well that doesn't happen.
The suggestion is every person or organisation or building gets relief except the artist.
Well, on the issue of Music Touring Relief the change is aimed at recognising the full team required for a show to happen; the agent, booker, promoter etc. Most of all though - two bands? However, I would see no harm in arguing for a lower number if you felt that was a good idea.
In terms of who benefits from these proposals, I’m afraid I’m going to strongly disagree with your assertion that artists would not benefit from a decrease in VAT or changes to alcohol duty, or indeed Business Rates. The costs of shows is borne by every element on an event, tickets, bar, food. Preserving the value of those elements so it supports the people involved in delivering each event and not third party costs will result in more money for everyone.
Would be good to see a list like this from an artist perspective though!
Many bands (singular) touring or gigging don't have agents, they self-promote.
I work with many bands and artists (solo/duo) who get nowhere near 12 even with agent+ promoter.
Trying to tie-in local one-off supports is a logistical headache too far for most self-promoting touring artists or bands.
And a band dealing with the paper work and accounting for any relief....interesting.
How 'directly' would a band benefit from reductions in VAT or duty or rates? Those benefit only the venue who will be seeking to increase their margins give the current low rate you mention.
The cost of the delivery of the event is incidental if the bands or artists can't afford to tour.
None of the otherwise worthy and aspirational suggestions assist an artist or band.
Indeed the words artist or band don't figure in any of the four suggestions you make for reliefs other than in so far Orchestral Relief might be reduced to assist bands or artists touring with a total of twelve. I regularly tour with bands and we have never got near twelve.
Just read all of the posts between the two of you and, as much as I don’t understand a lot of it coming from a lay perspective on a lot/all of this, I love the passion and willingness to continue forging ahead on this whole subject. There will probably be ‘raised eye’ moments that both of you will have experienced from each others comments that will be new learning to use to add to the mix of this, to me at least, complex problem. This can all be used for the greater good as we are all fighting for the same side, so keep the dialogue and posts flowing. Debating this issue with passion is what we need to see from not only yourselves, but many others too. It all starts with people like me reading the above and realising that this is as serious as it gets and helping to spread the message far and wide.
Hard agree there Allan. I disagree with some of what Andrew has posted, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth hearing.
👌
1. I haven’t been to a show in at least thirty years where there were less than 12 total performers/crew/techies. I apologies if I haven’t designed this relief to support your specific model where there are apparently less people than that working the show, but it could be adjusted so that you could benefit from it in isolation if for some reason you don’t play shows delivered by twelve people in total or you would prefer not to receive tax benefits as part of a collective claim.
2. PACSTR is a policy mentioned above that would give artists the ability to claim for technical crew at full wages relief.
3. You’re going to have to forgive me if my focus on music venues means I write about music venues. These are my policy suggestions for music venues, I’m sorry if that wasn’t clear. If you have a focus on artists then I’d love to hear what policies you would put forward to support that cause.
4. I don’t understand why you think VAT off tickets wouldn’t help artists who receive a percentage of ticket sales. You’re going to need to explain that, I genuinely can’t see why that wouldn’t help artists as much as it helps promoters and venues; in fact, more so.
5. Still don’t agree with your premise that artists won’t benefit if venues and promoters benefit, sorry.
I support you on venues and have regularly attended events where you have spoken eloquently in support of them.
Without bands and artists the ecosystem you seek to support with reliefs and policies is non-existent without those who make the music and draw audiences.
Any approach to supporting the ecosystem ought properly to include support for those artists and bands who want to come and play and either cannot at all or can do so in only ever-reducing frequencies or numbers of gigs.
You are of course right to support venues and that is the purpose of MVT, but when you set out proposals for policies and reliefs which venture beyond just venues as buildings and seek to include workers and organisations across the wider ecosystem then I do not think I'm in the wrong to ask how you propose to support those you've missed out, namely the artists and bands without which...
That aside:
1. Tone noted.
I have been to many gigs over my multiple decades in 'the business' where there are fewer than 12 (or 10 even) performers, 'crew' (a luxury for many solos or duos and even bands) + a sound tech (who might double up as lighting and is usually a venue appointee, invariably compulsory).
How it would be possible to operate and administer a Music Touring Relief where the separate elements - headline act (solo/duo/band) + support + sound tech + promoter + agent (if there was one) - are all individual or small organisation businesses taxed and invoicing separately and whom may not be the same people at each event on a short tour I simply can't envisage.
The sheer complexity of a 'collective claim' would cause the vast majority of bands or artists to give up in despair as almost certainly access to costly expert assistance for such artists would be unlikely if not impossible. Such advice would be just another unaffordable and time-consuming cost.
2. "Would give artists..."
Artists and bands are *not* mentioned in your comment on this relief. *Only* venues and 'operators' are specifically mentioned by you.
Even if artists had been included my response would be the same as to 1. above.
I shall repeat, administration and operation of such a relief by a band operating in the MVT/grassroots environment without expensive expert assistance is simply not going to happen whether as part of a 'collective claim' or not.
Having an 'ability' to access such relief doesn't make it happen and like many such reliefs in the tax 'code' would be largely unused.
3. Tone noted.
You are going to have to forgive me if my focus on touring and gigging artists and bands means I respond about the need to directly support them.
You've suggested policies and reliefs which *directly* benefit all of the other individuals and organisations and buildings in the music performance chain, but nothing explicitly benefiting artists *directly*.
After-the-event reliefs -even if administratively realistic (which they won't be given the nature and extent of the requirements of all tax legislation and HMRC Manuals)- are not going to encourage bands to tour.
Turning the question on me is deflection, but then as I say above I have regularly attended events where you have spoken eloquently.
4. Marginal gains, whilst welcome, will not make gigs for artists let alone tours profitable or even breakeven.
5. We will have to agree to disagree as to the extent of any benefit. Marginal changes around the edges are highly unlikely to enable a band to book a tour with any greater confidence of breaking even, let alone profiting.
Gigs in many of the smaller/grassroots/MVT venues is essentially loss-making for the vast majority of touring artists, and as I am sure you are aware many gigs and tours get cancelled because bands simply can't make the figures stack up even if they sell out the gigs.
addendum -
-- given the large amounts of cash dispensed by ACE etc to venues during the 'pandemic' I have seen little of that cash utilised *directly* for the benefit of the artists in the years since
-- shiny new air-con, new lighting rigs, new sound systems are great for the venue and the audience and for the bands/artists, yet the facilities *directly* used by artists/bands?
and yet...
-- 'Green' (never green; usually dirty and paint-flaking and tiny if not non-existent) rooms or toilet & changing facilities were invariably overlooked for improvement or maintenance,
-- equipment and personal baggage storage remained non-existent or inadequate.
-- merch space non-existent or out of the way of exiting audience,
-- etc etc etc
We fundamentally disagree on a number of these areas. I think that’s fine and I’m still keen to hear ideas from you or anyone else about policies that you believe would support artists directly.
I believe these measures would support everybody and everybody would benefit. You don’t agree. That seems okay to me, but I think if you disagree you should perhaps put forward alternative ideas. You say artists won’t benefit fromu these ideas, which I disagree with, let’s hear alternative ideas. And venues received money during Covid to avoid closure. It is factually wrong to say they spent it on new lighting systems, sorry. I’m not going to list exactly where the money went in a hugely long post about rent demands, debt, taxes, I’m just going to be blunt and say that your presentation of those outcomes is fundamentally incorrect.
MVT has presented plans to improve artist facilities at venues as a priority, including accommodation, just as a side note.
I don’t know what ‘Tone Noted’ is meant to indicate. I’m telling you honestly that I don’t agree with what you’re posting. If you’re reading a tone into that you disapprove of, maybe it’s that you don’t like having me disagree with you?
This is a very inspiring post, you painted the whole process so reachable.
If I may point on one detail: the highest VAT on concert tickets is in Hungary, that is 27%, which makes the Hungarian promoters very uncompetitive on international level and taking off more then the quarter of all venues’ ticket income. Add the 9% PRS (while Live Nation gets the discounted 4% PRS rate).
Also I forgot to add that a certain Ticket Platform now charges a Ticket Processing Fee on top of their Booking Fee - which is not shown at all on the Ticket Price Page of their Event Builder.
What a post that is and, as I have said before, it’s essential that we have someone like you Mark who understands all of the complexities of this problem. I’m genuinely concerned now that they will not see this decline in grassroots culture as something to move up the agenda. Is it a case of budget done and no room for tweaks/changes? Can they really be asleep at the wheel that much on this issue? I applaud you Mark and love watching the regular MVT update videos ‘The Last Safe Space’.
For some small shows we put on recently, out of the ticket purchase price 27% went to Platform Booking Fee / Venue Levy Fee / PRS. In a market where there is no choice but to use online ticket Agencies some of those Agencies have gone way past the 10% that they originally started at. In addition some have started to hide their booking fees and don't show any venue levy so the perception is that the Promoters/Artists are making more more than they are from the sale of tickets. Their lack of tranparency is designed to hide their excessive booking fees. These Agencies make big profits. At the same time we are finding that some Venues with a significant Venue levy fee have exclusivity agreements with Agencies thus taking a cut of their booking fee and the Ticketing Platform further increases their Fee's to cover this - which the Promoter and Artists pay for. Its time to look at alternatives to combat these practices. Could the industry at least partly bring Online Ticketing in-house so to speak. Could MVT & PRS work together to set up a Ticketing Platform? Existing Ticketing Agencies may hold data from previous shows but the reality is that most leads come from Artsists Socials / Mail Outs and other platforms such as Bands In Town. In the transition period promoters could contine to place smaller allocations with existing ticket platforms to access those data sets - it's also the case that some Agencies are asking for paid promotions to access these data sets. Just a Sunday morning rant/thought!
Hi John. I completely agree with your last sentence, but you've started this response with the word 'extortionate' which I would strongly suggest is the wrong way to approach it. We need to all work together and we won't be able to do that if the very basic needs of the venue, money they are compelled to try and raise just to survive, is viewed from the outset as 'extortionate'.
The costs of opening a venue have soared through no fault of the venue or of the promoter. An open and frank discussion about that is long overdue, because whatever the venue is charging you in venue hire I can almost guarantee is not representing anything like the real costs to them of opening and providing you the space. I completely agree with your view on deductions of VAT, and PRS deductions is a very long running conversation that must be brought to a conclusion with a new Tariff actually suitable for the grassroots sector. Venues adopt practices you would like them not to, like ticketing and levies, because they cannot survive without them. Nobody is trying to 'extort' anybody else, we are all in the same very difficult boat.
There are venues in London charging £300 in venue hire when their costs to be open per night are in excess of £1000. I'm not trying to tell you off or correct you by saying that openly, I'm using it to indicate that we should have a genuine, honest, open discussion about it, and that doesn't happen if people feel they are being accused of something.