MVT launches Save Our Venues campaign
- Details
To date, the GMV Crisis Fund has raised over £182,000 thanks to significant donations from Amazon Music, SJM, a number of high-profile artists and music fans throughout the UK. From this week, The GMV Crisis Fund has been re-named the #saveourvenues fund and will form part of a wider initiative that will see artists raising money for individual venues with whom they have a personal connection.
Artists are being encouraged to choose a venue that is currently in crisis from an interactive map and dropdown menu, which can be found on the campaign website at www.saveourvenues.co.uk. Those artists will then be given the tools and guidance to perform an ‘at home’ gig in support of that particular venue. Each venue will have their own crowd funding page with a clear target of the funds it needs to raise to stay afloat throughout this difficult period. Once a target is reached any excess revenue will go to the central #saveourvenues fund to help the wider grassroots music venue community.
According to MVT, 556 venues are currently at risk including The Sugarmill in Stoke-on-Trent, where chief booker/promoter Danni Brownsill comments: “We’re extremely proud to be a Grassroots Music Venue. These spaces are pipelines for talent and absolute lifelines for the communities they serve and the talents therein. We cannot allow them to be consigned to the past. UK music culture as we know it will simply not exist without these spaces, so it is vital to protect them.”
One of the main drivers of this initiative is Frank Turner whose recent series of Independent Venue Love shows, (which took place at different times to provide access for both European and North American audiences) for local venues Nambucca (London), The Joiners (Southampton), the Railway Inn (Winchester) and The Forum (Tunbridge Wells), raised thousands of pounds and provided a major inspiration for this campaign.
“The UK live music industry is staring into the abyss right now,” says Turner. “I’m not able to save the whole thing on my own, but I decided to do a series of livestream shows to raise money for specific independent venues that I know and love, and that are in serious risk of disappearing right now. The success of these shows demonstrated the love that exists between music fans and their favourite Grassroots Music Venues so the #saveourvenues campaign is a brilliant way of building on that and hopefully giving artists and music fans a chance to get involved and play a big part in helping them survive.”
The wider music industry is being encouraged to donate to the main #saveourvenues fund and those wishing to donate in excess of £1,000 are asked to contact Music Venue Trust founder and CEO Mark Davyd directly on mark@musicvenuetrust.co.uk
“Frank Turner’s amazing initiative proved that together artists and music fans can go a long way to helping at-risk Grassroots Music Venues get through this period of lockdown,” says Davyd. “We are building on his good work and are confident that we can help create real momentum that will see artists and venues working together to raise much needed funds.
“We are also calling on the wider music industry to support us too. We have received some magnificent support so far from music companies, but we need a lot more to step up and help save this essential part of the music eco-system. We cannot stress enough how critical it is that the music industry supports the #saveourvenues campaign as without them over 500 of the UK’s Grassroots Music Venues could go out of business, never to return, in the coming months. Please help us.”
www.saveourvenues.co.uk
(Jim Evans)
