Sing it loud: Britain’s grassroots music scene is under threat

When the singer-songwriter Frank Turner penned once that he had “played in every toilet,” he was alluding to places like Hot Box in Chelmsford — the sometimes grimy, intimate music venues that most UK towns and cities used to have.

Like the Beatles in another age, Turner cut his teeth in this grassroots medley of pubs, clubs and holes in the wall collectively known as the “toilet circuit”, touring relentlessly as he built a fan base that now fills up arenas.

“I made my bones playing independent venues — every band who got anywhere in this country did from Stormzy to Oasis and Adele. They are the R & D department (of the music industry), where you figure out who you are as a songwriter,” he said, lamenting the dire straits many of these spots are now in.

Turner is now one of the most proactive big name stars trying to rescue an essential part of UK music culture that is threatened with annihilation in the aftershocks of the pandemic.

Small, independent music venues had a turnover of £500mn nationally last year, according to the Music Venue Trust, but with operating costs of £499mn, they eked a sector wide pre-tax profit margin of just 0.2 per cent.

The effect is attritional. Grassroots venues have closed at a rate of one a week since MVT began collecting data in 2022 — 48 have been lost in total — and the charity is battling to save a further 53 this year.

“It’s crisis after crisis,” said Clara Cullen, who runs MVT’s emergency response team, explaining that audience figures have yet to recover from the pandemic and the kind of risk-taking by venues that gives exposure to emerging talent is partially on hold.

The problems facing Chelmsford’s Hot Box are typical. Occupying two railway arches in the Essex county town, it has capacity for just 100 people but like so many places of its ilk it is where young performers in the area get their first break.

Dave Hughes, its owner-director, said that during the pandemic, when fear and lockdowns prevented live events, he borrowed to cover rent and other costs, emerging with £90,000 of debt.

His business rates have since gone up by 49 per cent. His landlord, the Arch company part-owned by private equity group Blackstone, has raised rent this year by 12 per cent to £4,500 a month. His electricity bill is four times what it was. The venue needs £70,000 to stay open until the end of the year.

“Before Covid we were bumping along the bottom and we were happy with that. Now bumping along the bottom isn’t good enough — I need an extra £1,500 a month,” Hughes said.

He has raised £12,000 from crowdfunding, while Turner, who helped rescue 26 venues during the pandemic with £300,000 earned livestreaming from his living room, has also stepped in. He is playing two benefit concerts at the Hot Box in July and his fame allows the club to charge £40, nearly four times more than tickets normally cost.

“I could charge much more, but I don’t like to. I would feel guilty,” Hughes said, adding that a lot of loyal punters are struggling to get by themselves.

Bigger locations are also under pressure. In Brighton last month, DJ Fatboy Slim raised £20,000 at a benefit show for the Old Market, a 500-seat venue that has a cherished place in the seaside city’s vibrant arts scene.

“Many venues need outside help right now to get back on their feet,” said Norman Cook, Fatboy Slim’s real name. “Grassroots venues are the lifeblood of British music . . If people like the National Trust preserve our culture from the past we should sure as hell protect it for the future.”

The Old Market is part-owned by Luke Cresswell, co-founder with Steve McNicholas of Stomp, a percussive theatre act that tours the world and has just concluded 28 years performing off Broadway in New York.

Before the pandemic, Cresswell used Stomp’s global income to subsidise the Old Market’s eclectic programme and support emerging artists to the tune of £250,00 a year. This funding dried up when Covid struck and the venue only scraped by thanks to cultural recovery funds allocated by government.

Like Hot Box, the venue is now buffeted by economic tailwinds. “We had an ambitious plan for reopening but we haven’t been able to deliver it because of energy bills, business rates and the decline in audience numbers,” said Helen Jewell, Old Market’s creative director.

Stomp is showing at the venue over the summer, but the income it generates will fall short of the £170,000 it needs, Jewell added.

Many in the trade would like the government to consider relief on VAT or business rates to help keep such venues going and point out that they are a vital part of British music culture.

“The idea that these venues, responsible for creating the artists that contribute to one of our major exports, are so close to the wire, it’s terrifying,” said Ian Johnsen, manager of chart-topping rock band Enter Shikari.

In a forthcoming tour, the band has agreed to add a £1 levy on every ticket to help fund the grassroots circuit. MVT hopes this experiment could become a model for the industry and last week asked Coldplay, the UK band, to follow suit.

In an open letter to Coldplay, Mark Davyd, MVT’s chief executive, pointed out that some revenues from the band’s recent mega-shows at the Etihad football stadium in Manchester were supporting grassroots football through funding by big clubs for community access to pitches and training.

“That’s brilliant, isn’t it?” he wrote. “We don’t have anything like this in the music industry. Music Venue Trust believes that we should.”