‘For Every 100 Event Spaces Created Across The UK, 76 Close’ TicketSource Finds

Online ticketing platform, TicketSource, has analyzed UK entertainment venue openings and closures over the past decade using Companies House data, revealing how close the sector is to a tipping point between growth and decline.

The research has revealed that for every 100 event spaces created across the UK, 76 close. While this didn’t yet mean extinction, it did show “how little room there is between growth and decline,” where “a single difficult year of rising costs, weaker audiences, or reduced local funding could quickly shift that balance,” according to TicketSource’s findings.

The research was sparked not by an venue, but a festival closure, when Nottingham’s Splendour Festival announced that this year’s edition at Wollaton Hall & Deer Park in, July 18-19, would be its last – after 18 years of bringing headline acts and exciting newcomers to the English city.

Pollstar reported on the details for Splendour’s closure, shared by promoter George Akins, MD of DHP Family, here.

See: Nottingham’s Splendour Festival To End This Summer After 18 Year Run

Taking Nottingham as an example, TicketSource found that the city lost almost half (44%) of its event venues since 2015, with the number of community event spaces falling from 62 to 35 over the past decade.

London has seen some of the UK’s biggest changes since 2015, with Camden, Westminster, Islington, and Hackney recording the largest net gains in venues. Camden led with 492 new companies and a net increase of 226, despite 266 venue closures during the same period.

The positive outlook within the findings is that a net gain in venues did occur beyond London, with Glasgow (Scotland), Manchester, Thanet, Waverley and Brighton and Hove (all England) all seeing more venues open than close since 2015.

The worrying part, according to TicketSource, is the increasing amount of closures and the manner in which they happen.

Looking at the national statistics, the TicketSource finding paint a bleak picture: one in 25 UK venues don’t make it past year one; nearly 9 in 10 don’t make it to five years; one UK venue shuts every 16 hours; in 2025, venues grew by 15 a week, but 11 disappeared.

Terry Rosoman, Head of Marketing at TicketSource, commented, “The UK is not at an extinction point just yet, but the margin is narrow enough to make the question feel uncomfortably real.

“In 2025, the sector added 242 venues overall, with 799 openings offset by 557 closures. On the surface, that still looks like growth, but the gap is clearly tightening. The data also shows that many closures happen early. And in reality, that’s often the hardest part – turning a great venue idea into something that can truly last.

“If that trend continues at a similar pace, closures could begin to match openings within the next decade.”

Full findings can be viewed here.

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