The Importance of Local Music Venues

For generations the confines of basements and bars all across the land have been the safe haven for musicians and enthusiasts alike. You never forget your first time, the first gig you were in attendance for, much like the smell of stale beer that clings to your clothes or the ticket stubs you find in your pockets months after as a small but physical reminder of your experience. Such places are home to where artists hone their craft and spectators watch the evolutionary process unfold amid riffs and drum solos.

With a chokehold placed firmly upon independent music venues, their continuing closures nationwide are resulting in smaller, unsigned and unknown artists to struggle between a devolving non-existence of the same small town circuit and the leap into commercial success they need to gain help from chains and big business to thrive. Without the help of local venues to give them the platform they need to pursue their craft at either end of the spectrum then the face of the industry would look entirely different. This issue goes further than the personalities filling the stage’s spotlight, 21,600 jobs are created purely from the production of live music events in the UK, contributing to a £789 million GVA that boosts the country’s ever diversifying cultural identity. It’s not just the nurturing of talent that is cherished within the walls of a venue but the bar staff that serve you on arrival to the PR mobs and merch guys that bombard you on your departure and everybody from the guitar tech’s to booking agents that all attribute to the production of a show.

Unfortunately, the number of independent music venues nationwide has halved in the past decade, Scotland alone has lost some of their most vital over the past couple of years, most notably The Arches in Glasgow and Electric Circus in Edinburgh. Though morally far more than bricks and mortar has been taken from the hands of music lovers, there are many unavoidable reasons as to why a venue may be forced to close. In recent times the rise of the property developer has posed a real threat to the industry with a huge increase in developments being made in historically and culturally enriched areas across the country.  The local music venue report suggests that around 45% of venues hold a long term lease on their buildings with a majority of them not being freeholders holding renewable tenancy agreements, which shows no real hold on the ownership of the business. 

Other factors may include: noise, as most venues are placed in densely populated locations complaints can add up over time and force the establishment to close. Diminishing audiences has become a problem with issues such as the recession being an answer, with a lack both disposable income and interest from the public to want to go out and experience live music a drop in ticket sales could be down to this. Venues also feel that a lack of understanding with regards to music licensing laws can give them a negative effect, around 90% of them hold both PRS and PPL. Paramount to all of these issues is a distinct lack of funding, most small venues are not publicly funded and rely entirely on their own income or the help of organisations such as ACE (Grants for the Arts) the BBC or even lottery related initiatives.  This prevents business from thriving and having the capabilities to carry on and compete with opposition.

Venues are the benchmark of evolutionary process on either side, that of the attendee and the performer, there is no other platform given to artist’s that will allow them to grow, it’s not possible for them to be placed on a stadium stage and be expected to thrive, like any other job it takes experience. Change is being made but the threat of grassroots music becoming an increasingly elitist industry is a real issue.