Our Client Connections event, now in its second year, is a fantastic opportunity for the wider business to understand in more detail from a client’s perspective the day-to-day running of their organisation. If anyone has been lucky to hear Mark speak before they will know what to expect!

The Music Venue Trust is a registered charity, created in January 2014 to protect the UK live music network by securing the long-term future of iconic grassroots music venues. 

Much to the delight of organiser Ged Skelding the room was packed ahead of Mark taking to the stage. Mark started his presentation by first outlining the distinctive characteristics of what defines a grassroots music venue and the wider benefits they have to local businesses and the community. This then lead to the key issue and the statistic that from 2007 – 2015 London has lost 29.6% of the trading live music spaces which was met with astonishment among the staff, the majority of whom are huge music fans. Mark also highlighted the fact that The Astoria was the only key cultural venue in London lost to the Crossrail development – and not our most famed theatres/opera halls.

Other key issues that were highlighted during Mark’s extremely entertaining hour-and-a-half talk were the benefits that these grassroots music venues have on the night time economy, employment and local business. These are the venues that take risks on cultural programming, as they’ve given the likes of the UK’s biggest artists Ed Sheeren, Adele and Artic Monkeys a platform to hone their talent and nurture their on stage performance. These issues are not only unique to London – they affect venues across the UK.

Another alarming fact is that the average age of festival headliners has increased dramatically since 1996 as well as the average amount of years since a band/artist’s debut album is released to them headlining a major UK festival has considerably grown. This doesn’t make for good reading, the correlation is there to be seen with the amount of grassroots venues closing and the lack of new headliners at UK’s biggest festivals. Mark made the fantastic point that come 2022 Coldplay with headline Glastonbury forever!

We were also lucky enough to hear from one of London’s most recent venue owners Keiron Marshall from the Sound Lounge in Tooting. Keiron explained what it takes to open a new music venue in London and the way they’ve incorporated the Sound Lounge. This venue is set up as a social enterprise – more specifically a Community Interest Company (CIC), which means that any money made from the venue goes straight back into it, so the companies “assets” will only be used for social objectives and to benefit the community as well as limiting money it can pay any shareholders. 

If like me, these issues are close to your heart then please visit the MVT’s website and follow them via their social channels. Information on TicketWeb’s partnership with the MVT can also be found here or contact the TicketWeb sales team directly on [email protected] if you’re interested in signing up.

TicketWeb would also like to mention we are proudly sponsoring Venues Day 2017 which takes place at the Ministry of Sound. If you’re attending please come say hello and ask for a demo.

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Stay tuned for the nationwide http://grassrootsvenues.tickets/ website too.

Story by Ged Skelding