Following the success of last October’s Music Venues Day at Roundhouse, TicketWeb – Ticketmaster’s indie ticketing agency – has confirmed their headline sponsorship role for a second year. This partnership enables Music Venue Trust to offer free and discounted tickets to venue representatives from across the UK to the national networking event, taking place at Ministry of Sound, London on Tuesday 17 October.
Sam Isles, Managing Director of TicketWeb, said: “Just like Music Venue Trust, we recognise that grassroots music venues (GMVs) are the cornerstone of the industry. By partnering together over the last 12 months, we have been able to work to help defend and progress GMVs interests across the UK, most significantly with the launch of Backline – our bespoke platform developed specifically to empower independent venues and promoters. We look forward to continuing this relationship at Venues Day 2017, and our ongoing partnership.”
UK Music are also returning as a key partner for the event. Chief Executive Michael Dugher said, “Venues Day is a fantastic chance for the people who work so hard to make grassroots venues a success to swap ideas and information. UK Music is delighted to be working with the brilliant Music Venue Trust to bring together people to learn, share and network as they explore ways to improve businesses for their venues, audiences and artists. As CEO of UK Music, I remain extremely concerned about the ongoing threats to grassroots venues and I’m determined to continue to fight for our venues which are critical to our future success as an industry.”
Both TicketWeb and UK Music have worked alongside Music Venue Trust to strengthen the GMV sector and continue to support their work in protecting, preserving and improving these vital cultural and social hubs across the whole of the UK. Venues Day 2017 will bring together delegates from Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and England to discuss the continuing challenges to running a venue and to learn about initiatives that can support them. UK Music’s partnership is both in financial support and working together on the programme for the day.
As Venues Day is the only event designed specifically for the people who run the nation’s GMVs, the emphasis is on enabling as many representatives of those venues as possible to attend. This is only possible through sponsorship so each year Music Venue Trust brings together stakeholders in the sector to assemble an event that is affordable and useful to members of the Music Venues Alliance, the national association of GMVs.
The event returns to Ministry of Sound (the hosts of Venues Day 2015) who continue to offer support to MVT and the venues within their network.
There are still partnership opportunities available so if your organisation would like to join the fight to save the nation’s grassroots music venues, please get in touch with MVT here.
