Music Venue Trust has unveiled a major new package of funding and initiatives, each designed to tackle the ongoing economic challenges facing grassroots music venues in the UK.
READ MORE: The ticket levy that could save grassroots venues and artists: what happens next?
Set into motion last week, the new launch is a coordinated programme of infrastructure upgrades for venues across the country, each designed to target the core issues that have restricted touring, increased costs and reduced venue viability over recent years.
As part of the first steps being taken, energy audits are in progress, production systems are getting upgrades, and live music events are being announced in areas that have fallen off the national circuit over time.
It is the first phase of delivery laid out by the MTV, which includes a £200,000 funding allocation from The LIVE Trust to help stabilise and rebuild the sector. The funding has come from the £1 ticket levy implemented voluntarily by venues with over 5,000 capacity, which is donated to feed back and positively impact the grassroots music scene.
The main focus of the funding is to upgrade the physical and operational foundations of venues. This is seen with the MVT ‘Raise The Standard’ campaign, which sees more investment going towards sound, lighting and backline systems, as well as heightening the commercial competitiveness of grassroots spaces.
There is also the ‘Stay The Night’ initiative, which has been designed to make it easier for artists to tour by providing accommodation for them, and the ‘Feel At Home’ initiative, which addresses backstage areas and other artist facilities – increasing the number of venues that can practically and financially support touring artists, particularly in regions where live music has seen a decline.
Other initiatives include the ‘Off The Grid’ programme which sees audits and new efforts to reduce and ultimately eliminate long-term energy costs, and the ‘Emergency Response Hardship Fund’ in which venues in immediate financial distress are receiving targeted assistance.
“Grassroots music venues cannot keep being expected to survive on goodwill and admiration alone,” said Beverley Whitrick, COO of Music Venue Trust. “If the UK music industry is serious about protecting the talent pipeline, then it has to get serious about the economics that underpin it.
“This funding and the initiatives we are delivering are about practical change, lowering costs, improving infrastructure, rebuilding touring and creating a sector that is more resilient, more investable and fit for the future. Our goal is clear; don’t just fund problems, fix them.”
Further detail on the initiatives, including opportunities for industry participation, can be found in the new MVT booklet, Developing The Future of Grassroots Music Venues, available here.
The efforts from MVT, alongside Save Our Scene, This Feeling, AGMP and other Association of Independent Promoters’ members, comes after reports in 2024 revealed that the UK’s grassroots music scene would be facing “complete collapse” without urgent help, and after 2023 proved to be the worst year on record, with 125 grassroots music venues shutting their doors.
At the start of this year, it was confirmed that over half of UK grassroots venues made no profit in 2025 and there were 6,000 jobs lost in the sector, and MVT CEO Mark Davyd said that they had “have reached the absolute limit of what goodwill can possibly absorb”.
Some relief from the Government came earlier this year, when they delivered a U-turn and a package of extra support for pubs and venues, after previously dealing them a devastating blow with massively increased business rates.
Despite this though, there are still calls for all arenas and stadiums around the country to voluntarily contribute to the £1 ticket levy, especially as it was given the government’s backing back in 2024.
So far the government has been waiting for the industry to proactively make the levy work before stepping in and making it law. Last year, it was expected that 50 per cent of stadium and arena gigs would be paying into the levy by the end of 2025. This was not met – with just 8.8 per cent of shows in 2025 signing up to the levy – and a new deadline has been set for June 30 2026.
“These companies are delivering,” Davyd said of the likes of SJM, Kilimanjaro and AEG, going on to criticise Live Nation.
“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 Music Venue Trust, or the government, or 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.”
In 2025, the grassroots sector subsidised live music by £76.6million, while shows at arena and stadium level saw UK live music contribute a record-breaking £8billion to the economy.
Live Nation – who played a part in Harry Styles contributing £1 for each ticket to his upcoming Wembley Stadium residency to the LIVE Trust – then responded to the criticism.
They told NME that they “support artists’ choices on charitable donations, and have worked with numerous artists who have contributed to the voluntary levy – from Coldplay to Biffy Clyro – and will continue to do so.”
Other efforts to help artists at grassroots levels have been made by the Featured Artist Coalition. Last week it was confirmed that a funding pot of £125,000 had been made available by the UK Artist Touring (UKAT) fund to help alleviate the “cost of touring crisis” facing artists.
It came after a 2024 parliamentary report found that many artists are “working full-time but earning less than minimum wage”, and the first 26 artists to benefit from the fund have now been confirmed.
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