Music Venue Trust on Tour! Three new regional gatherings for venues announced

Music Venue Trust is delighted to announce three regional gatherings for grassroots music venues to discuss local, regional and national issues impacting on the sector.

North: Band on the Wall, Manchester – Weds 6 April

Midlands: The Cookie, Leicester – Weds 13 April

South: The Exchange, Bristol – Thurs 14 April

The three new events will be delivered in partnership with UK Music and are supported by Arts Council England. Delegate passes will be free to regional grassroots music venues. Mark Davyd of MVT said:

“With these new regional events we aim to ensure venues from across England are able to make their voices heard at national level. We want to make sure that Venues Day 2016 has a programme that really represents what grassroots music venues want and need to talk about, and to do that we are going to where they are to hear directly from them about local and regional issues.”

Since the first Venues Day event in December 2014, awareness of the precarious position in which the UK's small independent venues find themselves has grown enormously. Music Venue Trust, the charity created to champion and protect the nation's grassroots music, continues to lead this work and recently announced Venues Day 2016 which will take place on Tuesday 18 October at Roundhouse, London.

Beverley Whitrick of MVT said: “It is important for us to demonstrate that we are a UK-wide organisation so these 3 English regional meetings are the first part of a programme of MVT travelling around to talk to venues rather than expecting them to journey to London. We know that many of the challenges venues face are common across the UK but we need to assess whether there are regional differences in priorities and concerns. We have further meetings planned for Scotland and Wales, funding pending.”

Jo Dipple of UK Music said: “The pressures faced by music venues are the same all over the UK. They require nationwide action and publicity. Our recent report into the Bristol music economy showed that half of the venues surveyed said they were negatively affected by developmental, noise or planning issues. These Bristol venues support a music economy worth £123 million per annum. Getting conditions right to save all UK venues under threat and encourage them to flourish is a priority for UK Music. The knock-on effect for British music of leaving conditions to deteriorate does not bear thinking about. We must act. And we must act now”.

Venues Day 2015 took place the Ministry of Sound and saw 400 delegates networking with representatives from leading music industry businesses, cultural organisations and advisors on issues such as accessing finance, insurance, licensing and legal issues. The sold out event was 'headlined' by a heated debate featuring Ed Vaizey MP (Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy), Michael Dugher MP (Shadow Secretary of State for Culture), Jo Dipple (UK Music), Joyce Wilson (Arts Council England) and Steve Lamacq (BBC 6 Music).

A full line up of panellists and partner organisations for the regional events will be announced shortly. Further event details and booking for all passes will be available from the MVT website http://www.musicvenuetrust.com/