The case has been made for a £1 ticket levy on all arena gigs – for the survival of grassroots venues and artists

nme.com:

full report into the state of the sector for 2023, showing the “disaster” facing live music with venues closing at a rate of around two per week.

Presented at Westminster, the MVT echoed their calls for a levy on tickets on gigs at arena size and above and for major labels and such to pay back into the grassroots scene, arguing that “the big companies are now going to have to answer for this”.The Featured Artists Coalition – a trade union body representing the needs of musicians and artists in the UK – then wrote to NME to argue that while the survival of venues is “essential”, any kind of ‘Premier League’ model to be adopted by the industry needs to take into account keeping creators in pocket and being able to exist, as well as ways to open up the world of music to different genres, backgrounds and audiences.“What good is it keeping venues open if artists can’t afford to perform in them?” asked FAC CEO David Martin.Now the debate has been taken to the UK government, after last Tuesday (March 26) saw the Culture Media & Sport Committee hold evidence sessions with figures from across the industry to see what can be done.“The first impact we need to realise is that is 125 communities that have lost access to live music on their doorstep,” Music Venue Trust CEO Mark Davyd told the hearing. “The impact on those communities and the artists that live in those communities is very dramatic.

The closure of a space like Bath Moles obviously has a huge impact on the pipeline, but it also has a huge impact on Bath as a music city.