Indoor gigs at grassroots venues won't realistically return until October 'at the earliest', Music Venue Trust warns

'Saddened but not surprised': Music Venue Trust said it "repeatedly" warned the Government that gigs would be "at risk of being cancelled at short notice"
Lee Blanchflower/Unsplash
Jochan Embley31 July 2020

Indoor gigs at grassroots venues cannot realistically restart until October “at the earliest” — and the Government should focus on distributing crisis funding until then, a leading industry body has said.

It comes after the Government announced it was postponing plans to allow indoor performances from August 1. Audiences will not be allowed back inside venues for “at least a fortnight”, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said, bringing the new reopening date to August 15.

Music Venue Trust (MVT), which represents hundreds of grassroots venues across the country, said it was “saddened but not surprised” by this latest development.

In a statement, MVT said: “Since May 2020, Music Venue Trust has repeatedly informed the Government that live music events in grassroots music venues would be extraordinarily difficult to stage, not economically viable, and at risk of being cancelled at short notice during the current pandemic.

“A number of venues across the country have attempted to stage such events based on advice from the Government, incurring substantial costs to make their venues safe. That expenditure now adds to the growing mountain of debts accrued by those venues working within the government guidelines.”

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MVT added that it had “consistently asserted that no grassroots music venue will be able to stage live music events before October 1 at the earliest”.

It continued: “Music Venue Trust would like to restate and emphasise the position of the sector, which is that a clear and decisive position on the part of government to provide support for grassroots music venues in the form of efficiently distributed crisis funding until such time as they can reopen safely and viably would provide the much needed clarity that venues, artists, audiences and the wider public need.”

In early July, the Government announced a £1.57bn rescue package for the UK’s cultural sector. Arts Council England later confirmed that its £500m Culture Recovery Fund would be split up into grants ranging from £50,000 to £3m. Both live music venues and nightclubs are eligible to receive the funding.

Two rounds of applications have been announced for the grants, with a first deadline of August 21, and a second of September 4.

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