New 350-capacity music venue Future Yard opening in September

Although the coronavirus pandemic has put much of the UK's grassroots music venues at risk of closure, it's not all bad news, as a new 350-capacity music venue is opening its doors in September.

Future Yard is located in Birkenhead, Merseyside, and will open its doors for the first time in September to host a series of socially-distanced and digitally-streamed shows.

Birkenhead's own She Drew The Gun will play the venue's first show on 19 September to a socially distant audience. The band's Louisa Roach says, "Now that I’ve seen the venue, I’m really excited about playing here. I really like what’s happening with the place: it’s great to have something like this on your doorstep. I can’t wait to be on the stage in Future Yard, and to have that interaction again. It’s a step in the right direction, until we can do things properly when we’re over this pandemic."

Future Yard founder Craig Pennington says of the venue, "We believe that Future Yard is needed now, more than ever before. True, it is a challenging time, but we believe the experience of lockdown has shown how powerful a community can be and we want to provide a space for our local community to come together. We’ve also seen an explosion in live streaming and digital performance, which has been hugely welcome and is here to stay, but this does not replace live music. People who love live music have acutely realised how important it is to them, how much of a role it plays in their lives. We’re committed to creating a new venue to champion and support new music in Birkenhead."

There's a very limited number of tickets going on sale for the She Drew The Gun show from 30 July, but there'll also be a digital ticket option, which gives people access to a livestream of the show.

Pennington and the Future Yard team are also working with LJMU’s Low Carbon Eco-Innovatory to achieve a long-term goal of becoming the UK’s first carbon neutral grassroots music venue. Pennington says, "We all have a responsibility to the environment. The touring live music industry has an acute sustainability problem. We are committed to ensuring that we create a place that has a net positive environmental impact, one that fundamentally takes carbon out of the atmosphere and plastic out of our oceans, not one that adds to the problem."

Over the weekend, Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden confirmed that the first chunk of the £1.57billion emergency support package (£2.25 million) will be used to save up to 150 grassroots venues across the UK from insolvency.