#SaveOurVenues has officially passed the £1 million mark in donations in order to keep UK’s independent venues alive, let’s keep going!
The coronavirus outbreak is having a significant impact on every aspect of life in London, and that includes our culture, creative industries and night-time economy. These industries are so important to the fabric of our city during the day and night, and they will play a key role in helping us to recover from this public health crisis.
I’m pleased to be working together with Music Venue Trust, the LGBTQ+ Venues Forum, the Creative Land Trust and the BFI to offer this emergency funding to those areas most at need, but we need the Government to step forward and provide the comprehensive support this industry needs to protect its future.
Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London
In the UK, Music Venue Trust have been tirelessly fighting to protect the livelihood for grassroots and independent music venues; working incredibly hard to make sure that UK independent venues are protected from closure and afforded the opportunity to keep the grassroots UK music industry alive – even before we found ourselves faced with the upsetting possibility of not having access to live music for many coming months.
Back in January, Music Venue Trust secured a huge victory as they were granted massively slashed business rates which would allow multiple venues to see another day. Unfortunately in the face of this pandemic, many of these same venues are now very likely going to have their doors shut for good.
Last week on April 27th, MVT launched a campaign entitled Save Our Venues (originally titled Grassroots Music Venues Crisis) a crowdfunding campaign in hopes of raising enough money to assist these venues during this exceptionally painful time – with the hope that when they are able to open their doors again, they actually have the funds to do so and the independent industry can be kept alive.
While the campaign garnered success in raising about £182,000 at the time, it still required quite a big step in terms of support – but as of today (May 6th), it is a delight to announce that the fund has raised an incredible amount of money in solidarity with UK music industry – the public, artists, labels and in a celebrated move, massive donations from corporations such as Beggars Group, Amazon Music/BPI, Sony Music and more – including Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London.
“The UK live music industry is incredibly special and a key part of British music culture and in uncertain times like these it’s been great to see many in the music community come together for the #saveourvenues campaign to help protect and save Grassroots Music Venues across the UK.”
Paul Firth – Director, Amazon Music Europe
The #SaveOurVenues (Crisis Fund) has officially surpassed £1 million mark, and although the amount of funds needed to rescue over 550 grassroots venues in the UK from permanent closure needs to continue rising in order to achieve the goal, this is still a substantial success and we encourage everyone who is able to donate what they can to save independent venues in the UK from permanent closure.
We cannot begin to say how grateful we are to Beggars Group, Amazon Music/The BPI, The Mayor of London, Sony Music, SJM, Kilimanjaro Live, DHP and others for stepping up and helping us with the #saveourvenues campaign.
These are critical times for over 500 grassroots music venues many of whom simply won’t survive this crisis without donations from the music industry and music fans. This is a great start but there is still so much more to do, and we dare not get complacent. We urgently need other music industry partners to help the #saveourvenues campaign. Please get in touch if you can support us to prevent these closures.”
Mark David – CEO, Music Venue Trust
MVT is also encouraging the use of the hashtag #saveourvenues to direct the public to the campaign.
