The Music Venue Trust have shared their annual report, showing another worrying year for the grassroots in 2025.
Revealing their findings at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum in London last night (Tuesday January 20), MVT reported that 30 grassroots music venues closed forever between July 2024 and July 2025 while 48 stopped operating as gig spaces.
Of those that survive, an average profit margin of just 2.5 per cent saw a staggering 53.8 per cent of grassroots venues report no profit in the last 12 months, with a loss of over 6,000 jobs (19 per cent) across the year.
“We have reached the absolute limit of what goodwill can possibly absorb,” Music Venue Trust CEO Mark Davyd told those gathered at the V&A. “For years, grassroots music venues have quietly carried problems that should never have been theirs to solve. Rising costs. Shifting policy. Regulatory confusion. Political drift. Industry indifference. And because they didn’t collapse overnight, everyone else has been able to pretend that the system more or less works.
“Well, here’s the headline from this report: It does not work.”
The Music Venue Trust team launch the MVT annual report 2025 at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. Credit: Georgia Penny
Employer National Insurance increases were cited as the principle driver of job losses, while the recent increase in business rates has also proven devastating. The grassroots sector subsidised live music by £76.6million in 2025, while recent larger shows at arena and stadium level saw UK live music contribute a record-breaking £8billion to the economy. More action is still required on the government back arena ticket levy to save grassroots music to prevent “an even gloomier future”.
The loss of venues in regional areas across the UK has already caused what many think of a “the complete collapse of touring” in recent years, while last year’s MVT report showed that the UK was losing one music venue every fortnight. Fortunately, 2025 saw the rate of venue decline slow to its lowest point since 2018, but urgent action is needed especially due to recent job losses and a fundamental threat to the live music talent pipeline.
“When venues were forced to cut jobs, they couldn’t get rid of executives because they don’t have any,” said Davyd. “They didn’t trim luxuries because there aren’t any to trim. With no other option, venues were forced into a corner and forced to make a terrible decision none of them wanted to. They cut the first rung of the ladder. The trainees. The junior sound engineers. The box office assistants. The casual staff learning how venues actually work. Those people didn’t just lose jobs. They lost routes in.”
He continued: “That long term loss is invisible in the short term, and it is exactly why it is so dangerous. This isn’t just about fairness or opportunity. It’s about whether this industry still works ten years from now.”
At the V&A launch – which also saw a live performance from Squeeze frontman Glenn Tilbrook – Davyd argued that the 6,000 job losses weren’t the result of venues failing, but “because people keep have been making poor decisions at a political, policy and structural level, with the ridiculous expectation that the smallest, most fragile part of the live music ecosystem would be able to quietly absorb the consequences.”
Glenn Tillbrook performs at the Music Venue Trust annual report 2025 at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. Credit: Georgia Penny
He then revealed that 2026 was a year for MVT to “change gear” and a time for “the government and the industry seize the opportunity and change gear with us”. The Music Venue Trust will be expanding its frontline Venue Support Team and Emergency Hardship Relief Fund to prevent avoidable closures this year, as well as investing £2million immediately to permanently reduce costs and improve sustainability.
This will involve investing in projects including Venue MOT, Off The Grid, Stay The Night and Raise The Standard, to “focus on infrastructure resilience, operational improvement, energy efficiency, and enhanced artist and audience experience” and “to reduce operating costs while strengthening venues’ long-term viability”.
The Liveline scheme, in partnership with Save Our Scene and Association of Independent Promoters, will look to tackle the touring crisis by “covering venue costs, reducing promoter risk and guaranteeing artist fees”. This will be done to “restore a viable touring network to towns that have been excluded from professional live music, reconnecting artists with audiences across the UK”.
Davyd added: “This is no longer just about rescue, it is about working with our partners and colleagues, including the crucial role to be played by the LIVE Trust, to deliver investment and reform that restores the infrastructure that music careers are built on.”
MVT also demanded government action and fundamental reform on pre-profit taxation, permanent legal protection for venues from sound complaints by putting Agent of Change into law, and the creation of a permanent Live Music Commission to implement the Fan-Led Review and provide national leadership.
Last year saw the Royal Albert Hall in London recently became the first arena to commit to a LIVE ticket levy to help support grassroots venues, which sees £1 from every ticket sold invested back into the UK’s live music scene and helps smaller venues keep their doors open and for grassroots artists to tour. Huge names who have been supportive of the levy include Coldplay, Sam Fender and Katy Perry – who have all vowed to donate a portion of their tour revenues to support the grassroots sector.
Last May, Wolf Alice‘s Joff Oddie also joined industry leaders at a government hearing and insisted that not enough progress was being made in saving venues and new artists. It was reported that UK tour ticket contributions have raised £500,000 for grassroots music venues thanks to artists like Pulp and Mumford & Sons.
Now, the Music Venue Trust have argued once again that if voluntary industry contribution mechanism to the levy cannot be proven to work by June 2026, then the government must legislate and make the Grassroots Levy law – something Davyd would be “justified”. He praised companies SJM, Kilimanjaro and AEG for their contributions to the levy, but hit out at Live Nation.
Mark Davyd speaks at the Music Venue Trust annual report 2025 at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum. Credit: Georgia Penny
“These companies are delivering,” he said. “Live Nation, you know, and the whole industry knows, you are not. If the voluntary levy fails, it will not be the fault of the companies who have already embraced it, or of Music Venue Trust, or of the government, or of any will to do it on behalf of individuals, artists, managers, agents, audiences or anyone else. It will be a direct consequence of the overwhelmingly dominant force in the arena and stadium market deciding not to deliver a voluntary levy. That’s your choice Live Nation and everyone in the industry hopes you make the right one.”
Addressing the politicians in the room, David said: “My message is blunt: Stop mucking about. Stop making speeches that don’t actually move things forward. Just get things done. These are not radical demands. They are the minimum required for a sector this important.
“People who say it cannot be done should get out of the way of the people doing it,” Davyd ended. “Music Venue Trust is moving forward in 2026 and beyond. We are not asking if this can be done. We are doing it.
“The only remaining question, for everyone in this room and beyond, is whether you are going to do it with us.”
Read Music Venue Trust’s full 2025 annual report here.
London’s MOTH Club remains under threat – one that’s “existential” to the whole scene, campaigners argue” – with owners calling on local residents and fans to reach out to the borough’s planning department to contest a proposal for a new block of flats.
The venue was later hit with two separate planning applications for flats on Morning Road, next to MOTH Club, which were submitted to Hackney Council. The petition to oppose the planning applications has received more than 32,000 signatures, with Hackney Council receiving over 27,000 emails to save the venue.
Visit here to find out more and to sign the petition.
The LIVE trust will offer vital financial support to those working across live music, and also looks to support numerous corners of the live music ecosystem, offering backing to venues, artists, festivals and promoters.
Visit here to find out more about the LIVE Trust and the £1 ticket levy.
Last year it was also reported that music sales hit 20 year high, while “beneath the surface, UK artists earn far below average salaries”.
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