4 minute read
Music Venues Trust’s Beverley Whitrick takes the hot seat.
BEVERLEY WHITRICK
Music Venues Trust (MVT) Strategic Director, Beverley Whitrick takes the hot seat.
What’s behind the rise in venues adopting community business models? “Music Venue Trust (MVT) has worked for the past eight years to gain recognition for the cultural, social and economic value of grassroots music venues (GMVs). Unlike other cultural buildings, GMVs are treated as profitmaking businesses in most legal contexts even though the role they play in developing talent and new music is economically lossmaking. The move to change to CICs, CBSs and other recognised non-profit management structures is part of the solution but needs to be complemented by tackling the fact that 93% of GMVs operate in commercial rented properties. This means that they are subject to market forces in a way that other cultural buildings are not, leaving little money to invest in their core work. The average lease for a GMV has 18 months remaining and we are seeing an alarming rise in non-renewal of leases, resulting in venue closures.
“GMVs need certainty to plan and meet the demand, not only for their creative work but also to contribute to their communities and society by meaningful advances in access and sustainability. This is the research behind the Own Our Venues campaign and the formation of Music Venue Properties. MVP will be a benevolent owner of the buildings and the existing venue teams will continue to run them, with more secure finances.”
How could this trend benefit the wider live production industry? “MVT has undertaken a piece of work analysing how much of every pound spent on tickets in the grassroots sector can be spent on creative activity. In a GMV that operates in a commercially rented property, 46.6p of every £1 disappears immediately in rent, taxes and rates, leaving only 53.4p to be spent on putting on gigs. This means that overall budgets for staff and shows in these venues are low. If a venue is run as a not-for-profit and occupies a building owned by a benevolent landlord, which
Beverley Whitrick
music venue properties have been designed to be, then the figures look very different. For every pound spent, only 11p goes to rent, leaving 89p to be spent on the core creative activity. Not only does this give the venue money to physically improve the venue but it means that there is more money available for paying the venue team and the artists’ teams.”
How important is securing the future of GMVs? “If a town loses its GMV it is expensive to replace and it takes someone with passion and financial backing to spearhead such an undertaking. MVT focuses its energy on preventing closures and helping existing venues to operate more effectively. The ownership of the buildings in which GMVs operate is the single biggest obstacle to their sustainability as cultural hubs, so community ownership of the bricks and mortar plus community supported entities operating them makes so much more sense. We have been delighted that so many parts of the music industry recognise this and are prepared to support the Own Our Venues initiative. The music community investing in itself can only make it stronger and, hopefully, pave the way for greater collaboration in nurturing talent across the UK.”
What does the future look like for MVT? “In addition to the Own Our Venues campaign, we have been developing our team to ensure that the charity is equipped to deal with our growing workload. We launched a new membership model for the Music Venues Alliance, which enables us to pay for some of our core member services without the need for external funding, meaning that we can direct attention where it is most needed without reference to anyone else’s agenda. We are developing a whole host of member resources too. Our Live Projects, in partnership with companies including The National Lottery, Vuse and FreeNow, enable us to bring artists to venues they may not be expected to play by covering their fees. We are also currently working on the eighth edition of our national networking event Venues Day, which will be held on 18 October 2022 at Hackney Church, London. This is the largest gathering of grassroots music venues and relevant stakeholders in the UK and will cover all of the elements above, as well as being the primary networking event for the sector.”
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