Ticketmaster has donated £60,000 to the Music Venue Trust (MVT), helping to support the survival of grassroots venues and emerging talent.
The donation comes thanks to a plan the ticketing giant unveiled last year, in which fans can contribute directly to the MVT by taking part in an upsale option when purchasing tickets to live events.
First being launched on Venues Day 2023 (October 17), Ticketmaster shared that it was committed to matching all donations received and would be running this upsell annually.
Over the past two years, the initiative has helped to raise over £150,000 to help support the survival of the UK’s live music scene, and funds are placed directly into MVT’s Pipeline Investment Fund, which benefits grassroots venues, artists and promoters.
It has been confirmed now that in 2024 alone, Ticketmaster – along with help from fans – has raised £60,000 for the fund.
“We have long been supporters of MVT’s work and proud to have helped raise £60,000 in 2024 through our annual MVT upsell where we match every pound donated by fans on our site,” said Andrew Parsons, managing director of Ticketmaster UK. “This brings our upsell total to £150,000 in just two years.”
Mark Davyd, CEO of Music Venue Trust, added: “We are very grateful to Ticketmaster and its customers for their support at a time when this type of initiative is very much needed.
“Their recognition that grassroots music venues are struggling badly just to keep the lights on without these types of donations and their efforts to do something about it is extremely welcome!”
Detail view of a Ticketmaster logo (Photo by Ric Tapia/Getty Images)
As highlighted by MusicWeek, the Pipeline Investment Fund was founded in 2022 with the support of members of the Music Venues Alliance. Upon it first going live, it was funded through the ticket sales of the MVT’s Revive Live programme – a series of live shows that arose as a partnership with the National Lottery.
The outlet also reports that, to date, it has raised over £5million. £500,000 of this sum has gone into grassroots infrastructure.
The figures shared come as Live Nation – which owns Ticketmaster – reported its biggest year yet in 2023, taking into account both concert attendance and ticket sales.
In February, the entertainment giant published its end-of-year report and stated that live music soared worldwide over those 12 months “from clubs to stadiums”, with 145million fans attending over 50,000 events (up 20 per cent from 2022). Ticketmaster sold 620million tickets, a 13 per cent increase from the previous year. Its revenue increased by 32 per cent to nearly $3billion.
The efforts made by big companies to support grassroots venues have been gaining more momentum in recent times. Earlier this month, it was reported that ASM Global arenas had joined forces with the MVT to support grassroots venues across the country too.
ASM Global first announced its commitment to the MVT in 2023, and has so far taken numerous steps to help provide support to grassroots venues. These include providing free access to wellbeing advice and marketing training, promoting grassroots venues and artists at ASM Arenas, and donating venue and stage furniture.
It comes as this past year has seen pressure mounting for the UK’s smaller venues to receive a contribution from arena and stadium gigs to ensure their survival. The model is similar to the one seen in the Premiere League of football, and is already in use in several countries across Europe. It was also recommended by MPs after a DCMS investigation back in the spring, and pressures rose for larger venues to commence support before being forced to do so by the government.
Chris Martin of Coldplay performs at Glastonbury Festival 2024. CREDIT: Samir Hussein/WireImage/Getty
Artists have been taking the cause into their own hands too, and the likes of Coldplay, Enter Shikari, Katy Perry, Frank Turner and Sam Fender have all adopted a levy for their respective tours to help save grassroots spaces, after 2023 proved to be “disastrous” and the worst year on record with 125 grassroots music venues shutting their doors – a rate of two per week.
The Music Venue Trust argued that a tidal wave of closures threatened the fabric of the UK music scene thanks to the recent budget announcement, with the circuit and artists already suffering from “the complete collapse of touring”.
Visit here for more information on how to support the Music Venue Trust campaign.
Beyond raising funds with ticket sales, Kate Nash has taken a different approach to raising awareness in recent weeks, campaigning to bring awareness to the hardships faced by local venue owners and emerging artists.
Last month, she launched her Butts for Tour Buses campaign, which saw her join OnlyFans to protest the ongoing financial pressures facing the music industry and help raise money for her ongoing UK and European tour. She also took her “bum on the back of a fire truck” protest to the London offices of Live Nation and Spotify as well as the Houses of Parliament to highlight the challenges facing artists and those working in the touring industry.
Kate Nash at Victorious Festival 2023 (Photo by Harry Herd/Redferns/Getty Images)
In a statement to NME, Nash maintained that the value of recorded music is “extremely low” and the “cost of presenting live music has gone up by 30.3 per cent over the past two years” with 125 venues closing last year in the UK — echoing concerns raised by the MVT last month.
“The industry is in crisis, the music industry has failed artists, and is completely unsustainable, and my arse is shining a light on that. And none would be listening if my bum wasn’t involved,” she continued. “This is a conversation about agency. And selling pictures of my bum is giving me the agency to reinvest in my creative economy. The music industry does not give me that agency.”
More recently, Glasgow councillors backed the introduction of a new £1 levy on tickets for so-called “mega-gigs” in the city.
The efforts made by Ticketmaster to support small music venues comes amid the company being on the receiving end of backlash earlier this year, when they used dynamic pricing during the ticket sale for Oasis’s huge reunion tour – meaning that the price was unexpectedly hiked up following huge demand. This was a topic that was later addressed in the UK parliament.
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