‘Let’s Do It Ourselves’: Music Venue Trust Clarifies UK Reports On Call For Ticket Tax

“Music Venue Trust does not believe that the best way forward to invest in and protect our Grassroots Music Venues is a government enforced Ticket Tax, even though such a tax is regarded as normal elsewhere in Europe,” MVT CEO Mark Davyd told Pollstar via email. Pollstar had reached out for clarification, after a report titled “Music Industry Calls For ‘Ticket Tax’ To Save Live Venues” was published.

By “elswhere,” Davyd was referring to France, a country that imposes a 3-percent tax on tickets. “It is obvious we need a Pipeline Investment into these vital venues. Urgently. But we’ve got a much better idea,” he wrote.

“We think this industry can take action to solve these issues itself. In a thriving and expanding £4.4 billion [$5.8 billion] live music economy, it is not acceptable that we are letting our Grassroots Music Venues close down for the sake of £2,000 in legal fees, £10,000 of programming money, or £20,000 of infrastructure investment,” he continued, citing 2016 industry figures published by UK Music.

According to Davyd, grassroots music venues in the UK invested £8.5 million ($11.2 million) of their own money into developing new talent in 2017, within a total investment of £81.2 million ($107 million) they made producing, marketing and paying for live music events. “That’s 0.19 percent of the total that the whole music industry turned over,” he said.

The numbers are taken from Music Venue Trust’s own in-depth analysis among a cross-section of it 280-plus members.

Davyd explained that “these venues raised just £72.7 million from tickets but paid out £81.2 million on live music. That’s all risk taking that we should reward them for.”

– Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar
A Brighton institution

One of the most recent music venue to announce its imminent closure in the UK is Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar in Brighton, England. The reasons are unclear, venue management told Brighton & Hove News, that there were “far too many issues to make running it viable.”

According to the MVT, those issues include “rent, rates, costs too high, profit margins non-existent, a new development coming at them which inevitably means noise challenges, a decaying infrastructure it’s too expensive to maintain, licensing conditions which cut into business…” Davyd elaborated more on theses issues in a 2017 interview with Pollstar.

According to Sally Ann Oakenfold, who runs Sticky Mike’s until it’s official date of closure, Dec. 31, fixing the old building was the most urgent issue that required outside funding.

Sticky Mike’s is known as one of the most vibrant, community based, grassroots spaces in the country, and home to a selection of alternative club nights run by Brighton’s promoters, as well as for hosting regular live concerts with local and international bands.

MVT stated, “the loss of Sticky Mike’s should be a wake up call to Brighton & Hove City Council. To UK Music and the bpi. To Arts Council England. To the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.”

According to the trust, the bar could have been saved for the price of two days worth of the grant given to the Royal Opera House every year. “Think about that. Two. Days. The average level of subsidy these venues get in Europe is 35 percent of gross turnover. The average level of subsidy UK venues get is zero percent. Nothing. Last year, these venues faced an average business rates increase of 38 percent,” the statement continues.

And while MVT, along with UK Music, the Musicians Union and other organizations, has called for political action to lower business rates, Davyd doesn’t want to place all his hopes in government.

“Let’s find a way to create our own pipeline investment fund,” he said. “Just 0.19 percent of the total [income generated by UK’s music industry], invested back into our grassroots research and development venues. A fund we all manage together, to make sure these venues are accessible, that they have excellent lights, sound, backstage facilities.

“Let’s do this so that a young person’s first experience of live music in their town is a fantastic experience that makes them a lifelong live music fan. Let’s work together to find a way to invest in our future artists and audiences. Let’s work together to create sustainable, excellent venues artists can afford to play in and audiences want to go to,” Davyd continued.

The £4.4 billion figure includes revenues generated by the country’s entire music industry, including the recorded music sector, of which Sony Music has pledged to financially support grassroots music venues.

When looking at live music alone, “from giant festivals like Glastonbury to small bars and clubs,” the impact on the UK’s economy was £1 billion, up by 14 percent year-on-year, according to UK Music’s figures.

Incidentally, Davyd recently chose England’s most famous event to highlight another important factor in the struggle of grassroots music venues: the public’s spending decisions.

Glastonbury just reported that it sold out all 135,000 tickets for its 2019 edition in 36 minutes. “If you didn’t get a Glastonbury ticket, and apparently circa 800,000 of you will have tried and failed, and you were prepared to fork out £253 to see some live music, how about looking up the nearest grassroots music venue near you, going on their website and spending even half of that booking some tickets to see artists playing in your local area,” Davyd wrote.

He added, “800,000 of you prepared to spend £253 each equates to £200 million you were prepared to spend on live music. Even half of that would resolve most of the problems facing grassroots music venues that everyone keeps talking about.”

– Grassroots Music Venues
incubators of future headliners

Davyd’s remarks tie into what Ben Lovett, Mumford & Sons member and founder of London’s Omeara music venue, talked about in an interview with Pollstar earlier this year. Lovett said, that the survival of grassroots music venues was “obviously also dependent on people turning up and investing their own hard-earned money into this stuff. 

“You asked earlier about ticket prices: some people do think they’re too expensive, and sometimes a 10-pound ticket to see a band would be more attractive than a 15-pound ticket, and yet people are willing to be paying their Netflix subscription and are willing to spend a few pounds on a daily coffee.

“There’s a weird value system going on, where people will, for years of their life, pour into writing songs that can really inspire people. And then they invest into rehearsal rooms and gear and maybe a van to get around, and then they come up, and, at a grassroots venue level, they will probably just about break even on a show. And people are still feeling that things could be cheaper.

“We can see in hard numbers how much people will spend on a ticket vs. how much they’ll spend on drinks or merchandise that night. The amount of people are willing to spend on a ticket is the least, and that needs to be worked on.

“People need to change their value system a bit and invest into the music they profess to love so much. If we get it going a bit better in the small to medium sized [venues], I think there’ll be more options for people to enjoy regular connection with music and other art forms, so they don’t have to spend 500 pound on a weekend at a festival. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. But maybe that’s just me.”