Music Venue Trust warns UK government that grassroots live music sector is at red alert status

The UK government's £1.57billion Cultural Recovery Fund is set to be distributed from 5 October, but grassroots music venues in England, Scotland and Wales won't find out if they'll receive funding until 16 October.

Music Venue Trust has issued a warning for the UK government, revealing the situation with grassroots music venues has been declared as "critical" from today (30 September).

MVT co-founder and CEO Mark Davyd said, "After six months of struggling to survive, grassroots music venues now face a two-week period of huge uncertainty in which their future will be decided by the outcome of a single government funding announcement. The Government has put all its eggs in one basket and has no backup plan to prevent the complete collapse of this entire cultural sector, placing at risk over 200,000 jobs, and billions of pounds of economic activity."

He added, "Venues, artists, audiences, and communities have done everything they can to support the #saveourvenues campaign, which has helped hundreds of grassroots music venues to survive to this point. Music Venue Trust has offered extraordinary support to enable grassroots music venues to make strong, evidenced applications to the Cultural Recovery Fund. The entire government focus on what can be achieved by that single fund will reach its conclusion between October 5th and October 16th when the results of those applications are announced. Any venue that is not successful, or any venue that is ineligible, will still be unable to open, will still have to pay rent and will still have no possible income sources from the day those decisions are announced until the day they are finally able to open. We need everyone who cares about the future of grassroots music venues to take note of these decisions as they are made and if necessary to take direct action to save any venue that is unsuccessful. It’s up to us – the government may very well fail to save our venues but we as individuals can still fight for their survival."

The red alert status for the grassroots live music sector is announced after Music Venue Trust issued responses to Chancellor Rishi Sunak's Jobs Support Scheme and the UK government's 10pm curfew.