Glad it ’ s all over ?
Music Venue Trust CEO Mark Davyd provides his perspective on what ’ s needed in order for the grassroots venue sector to fully recover from the impact of the pandemic
So that ’ s it then , crisis over . We can all go back to exactly how we were before , gigs are back , work is back , audiences are back , and everything just carries on exactly as it should be . Except for that little blip in the middle where you could only be 6ft away from a trombonist provided you were seated and holding a scotch egg .
Except it isn ’ t really all over . A tsunami of cancellations , a barely functioning international touring network , low audience confidence , and an incredibly challenging staffing crisis are just some of the many issues facing the grassroots music venue sector as we emerge blinking into the post-Covid dawn . Venue operators are struggling to keep the shows in the diary , especially US / European acts , grappling with customers reluctant to buy tickets for shows they ’ ve lost all trust will be delivered . And if they finally do manage to get the doors open , they are picking through the wreckage of a staff roster that saw over 35 % of all workers decide to permanently leave the sector during the pandemic .
In total , grassroots venues
Mark Davyd
have accrued an additional £ 110 million in debt , a crippling sum for a sector with an average turnover per annum in the last five years circa £ 350m and a profit margin that hovers , even in the best of years , around the low single digits . Having dealt with the crisis of the pandemic , the UK ’ s grassroots music venues , and the whole ecosystem that relies on them being open , faces a second crisis : The Recovery .
How to recover from this body blow is the question vexing venue operators , staff , promoters , artists , managers , and agents active at a grassroots level . There ’ s been a lot of talk about ‘ building back better ’, but in reality what does that actually mean ? To bounce back from the Covid years , we need to consider exactly why so many of our grassroots music venues were under an excessive level of threat of permanent closure . Where were their reserves , their financial resilience ? Why could so few people working in this sector access the government support offered elsewhere ?
Music Venue Trust has been working on a core concept for
“ There ’ s been a lot of talk about ‘ building back better ’, but in reality what does that actually mean ?”
the last few years which we call The Grassroots Pound . It asks the question , “ what happens to every pound spent on a ticket to see an artist at grassroots level ?’ We ’ ve been tracking and auditing that investment made by audiences , assessing how much of it achieves the purpose for which they spent it ; to support their favourite new artists , local facility and people who deliver live music in their community .
The moment £ 1 is handed over , 16.6p of it is claimed by the Treasury in VAT . A further 7p disappears in local taxation , on Business Rates and levies . 14.8p is then sucked out of the ecosystem by landlords – 93 % of UK grassroots music venues are tenants . Nobody has turned on a light or taken a guitar out of a case , and there ’ s already only 61.6p left . This is one of the highest rates of taxation and premises costs in the world , completely out of synch with our competing music nations ’ approach to developing new talent and supporting local live music communities .
If we are serious about the desire to ‘ Build Back Better ’, we need to start right here . We need an ownership and taxation model that invests in the grassroots , not feeds off it . We need to reimagine grassroots music venues and touring to create a financial sustainable model for everyone involved , with reasonable conditions and practices that support this circuit to create the next wave of British talent . We need radical change from the industry that is matched by action from the government .
If we want this crisis to be over , we need to put our house in order . Time for change .
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