Southbank Tops For PRS

London’s Southbank Centre, which includes the Royal Festival Hall and the Queen Elizabeth Hall, is the UK’s leading music venue according to PRS For Music.

The royalty collection society analysed data from more than 10,000 live music events in 2011.

The resulting report showed the 422 events in Southbank Centre venues attracted more than 1 million people.
It also reinforced the argument that live music is at the heart of Britain’s creative industries, with the shows producing annual revenue of £3.9 billion.

“I am thrilled to see so many cultural centres featured in the analysis, from the newly opened Kings Place in London and The Sage in Gateshead to the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester,” said PRS chief exec Robert Ashcroft.

At press time it wasn’t clear what criteria PRS used to compile its ratings. London’s O2 arena, the world’s busiest venue, didn’t figure in its Top 10 UK venues, while The Sage – a 2,000-capacity performance space in Gateshead – came second behind the Southbank Centre.

The other venues in the Top 10 included the O2 Academy in Birmingham, The Stables in Milton Keynes, King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow, the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, and London venues such as Ronnie Scotts, O2 Academy Islington, and the recently opened Kings Place.

The PRS research also showed that the Top 100 venues put on 13,781 concerts last year, the Top Five venues put on more than 1,829 concerts between them, and London accounted for 30 percent of the Top 100 live music venues.
The other top concert locations were Glasgow, which had eight venues in the Top 100, followed by Manchester with five, Birmingham with four and Bristol with three.