US live music scene: “Without government support, you won’t have independent venues in America”
NME about what the US live music community still needs from the US government to survive this stage of the ongoing pandemic.With ticketholder no-show rates reaching a high of 50 per cent last month and the National Independent Venue Foundation recently relaunching its Emergency Relief Fund, venues and artists told us they are still facing show cancelations, financial challenges, and health risks associated with COVID.Ella Williams, AKA Squirrel Flower, was set to tour independent venues across America in January, following the release of her second album ‘Planet (i)’. But when the highly contagious Omicron variant caused an uptick in COVID cases in January, Williams made the call to push back the first two weeks of her tour.“I didn’t postpone the shows because of local guidance or venue guidance,” she told NME.