We are still here for the grassroots live music sector
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The Supporting Grassroots Live Music fund invests in projects to host and promote live music in grassroots venues.
Supporting Grassroots Live Music recognises the unique challenges that grassroot music venues and the promoters that work within and with them face, and their (until recently) relatively limited experience of – and success in – accessing public funds. From the Arts Council’s perspective Supporting Grassroots Live Music was a great opportunity to build our relationship with the sector and to support venues and promoters to develop their businesses and grow confidence in applying for public funding.
We recognise grassroot music venues are valued cultural spaces that provide opportunities for people from all backgrounds to experience live music. They support the development of emerging artists and the wider ecology of venue management teams, promoters and others who enable musicians to develop and thrive. Since the fund’s launch in 2019 we have invested £7.23 million in 378 projects ranging from Komedia in Bath who used the fund to improve their PA and lighting equipment, to Forum Music Studios in Darlington who supported 44 local artists to produce and stream professional quality recordings from their venue.
To ensure that our investment has genuinely begun to help address the needs of the sector, in 2022 we commissioned an evaluation of the Supporting Grassroots Live Music fund. I am grateful to the team at the hub who undertook the evaluation, and to all the venues, promoters and other stakeholders who contributed it. The report clearly shows huge benefits for artists, venues and communities and a strong fit between the aspirations of those who work in Grassroot Music Venues and our strategy Let’s Create. You can read the evaluation and the Arts Council’s response here.
I’m delighted to see the impact of the Supporting Grassroots Live Music fund in realising these aspirations. But equally important to me is the opportunity it has presented to strengthen our relationship with the grassroots music sector, and to build its confidence in applying to the Arts Council for investment.
Today I’m thrilled to announce the next step in our ongoing relationship. We will keep the Supporting Grassroots Live Music ring fence in place until September 2023, opening up a further £1.5 million for new applications, after which support for grassroots live music will become one of the Arts Council’s new time limited priorities for National Lottery Project Grants, initially for two years until September 2025. Decision panels will prioritise strong applications from grassroots music venues and promoters in their decision making and we expect that the result of this will be to at the very least maintain our current level of support at £1.5 million per year going forwards.
To ensure this transition is successful we will continue to monitor application numbers and success rates from the grassroots live music sector, identifying where we should prioritise further advice giving and support and ensuring that we have information resources in place that clearly indicate how the work of the sector aligns with our strategy Let’s Create.
In addition we will also do the following to support the grassroot music venues sector:
- invest £500,000 in Music Venue Properties – a new charitable company whose sole purpose is to support grassroot music venues as a benign landlord focused on reinvesting back into sector – as it purchases the freeholds for at least four grassroots music venues across England to secure these vital community assets for the long term.
- continue to work with partners across the music industry – including the Music Venue Trust, Association of Independent Promoters, LIVE, and UK Music – to understand the ongoing challenges faced by venues and promoters and provide advice and support.
- champion grassroots live music by placing a spotlight on successful publicly funded Grassroot Music Venues projects and actively publicising our funding opportunities and advice giving to the sector.
The work we started in 2019 has taken longer than we envisaged, not least due to the disruption caused by Covid-19 but, in many ways, this extended timescale has only enabled us to deepen our relationship with the grassroots live music sector. I am excited about the opportunities this announcement presents and strongly urge the grassroots live music sector to continue to develop strong funding applications and to work collaboratively with us over the coming years.
