Music Venue Trust has raised £2 million in the UK for venues who face permenant closure due to COVID-19. Now MVT request urgent help from the Government.

Since launching the #saveourvenues initiative in April and raising £2m in donations, Music Venue Trust have taken 140 British grassroots music venues off the “critical” list to keep the businesses out of bankruptcy during closure for COVID-19. Depite great efforts from the UK public, MVT is still in need of funding to help the 400 other venues still in the “critical” list.

CEO of Music Venue Trust, Mark Dayvd is now turning to the UK Government with a request for the further £50m needed. The UK has one of the highest rates of VAT on ticket sales for culural event. Dayvd also suggests a one-off tax cut on ticket sales for the next three years for venues and promoters. This cut will ease financial pressure on the sector.

This funding is needed to prevent mass closure of these venues over July, August and September. The live music sector in the UK genarates £5.2 billion, plus £2.7bn in export revenues. We are currently on track for a total collapse of this sector, with 90% of venues and festivals facing permanent closure, leading to thousands of job cuts with promoters, production companies, managers, agents, artists and more.

When we eventually emerge from lockdown, Grassroots Music Venues, the absolute bedrock, the foundations, the cornerstone on which our world beating £5.2 billion per year industry has been built, are going to be essential to live music bouncing back. It is therefore economically short sighted and frankly ridiculous to put a £5 billion a year industry at long term risk for lack of a short term £50 million investment.
The generosity shown towards our #saveourvenues campaign since we launched it in April has been staggering. The £2m we have raised to date has saved literally hundreds of venues in the short term, but the situation is still dire and relying on donations simply isn’t sustainable as we move into a recovery phase. With that in mind let’s act now and protect what we have, because what we have is incredible and it is ridiculous to put ourselves in the position where we might permanently lose it for less than 1% of the income it generates for us every single year. £50 million in financial support and a temporary tax cut, that’s all we are asking.
Who loses if this doesn’t happen? Not just the venues, not just the artists, not just the audiences, not just our communities. The government is the biggest loser of all here; billions of pounds of future tax revenues is on the line. Every other serious cultural country in the world is acting to protect its future talent pipeline…. and they don’t even have the incredible talent and the vibrant pipeline we have in the UK. We need our government to step up we need them to do it now.

Mark Dayvd – CEO – Music Venue Trust