Music Venue Trust (MVT), which represents hundreds of UK grassroots music venues (GMVs) launched its 2024 Annual Report in the Senedd in Cardiff last night with a special event for politicians, policy makers, venues and key stakeholders featuring a welcome from BBC broadcaster Bethan Elfyn, a performance from The Anchoress and a stirring keynote speech from Jack Sargeant, Minister for Culture, Skills and Social Partnership.
A survey of the 44 members of the Music Venues Alliance Wales (MVA Wales), who employ over 1600 people throughout the GMV community, found that they staged over 8,800 live events comprising over 80,000 individual artist performances given to a total audience of just over 1 million live music fans.
The total direct value to the Welsh economy from these events was £28.4 million. However, on average, GMVs (33% of which are now registered as not-for profit entities – a 29% increase in not-for-profit registration since 2023) operated on a profit margin of just 0.48% with 43.8% of them reporting a loss in the last 12 months. This means that the sector as a whole effectively subsidised live music activity in Wales to the tune of £8.8 million.
“One of the most concerning trends to have emerged from this report is the huge decline in locations on the UK’s primary and secondary touring circuits. In the 30 year period between 1994 and 2024 those touring locations have collapsed, with an average tour in 1994 including 22 dates and the equivalent tour in 2024 consisting of only 11 dates. Furthermore, touring in 1994 was spread across a range of 28 different locations across the country. In 2024, just 12 locations, all of them major cities, remained as primary and secondary touring circuit stops, acting as regular hosts to grassroots tours.”
Worryingly, it found “only one location in Wales remains on the national touring circuit, Cardiff, with even thriving music locations like Swansea, Wrexham and Newport struggling to be included on the majority of national tours by new and emerging artists. In Wales, this means swathes of the country have been cut off altogether from the opportunity to see the hottest new acts, resulting in people having to travel further or simply being unable to access new live music at all. The result, demonstrated in this report, is a decrease in the total number of live music shows (down 8.3% since 2023) accompanied by an even steeper decline in ticket revenues (down 13.5% since 2023).”
Mark Davyd CEO of Music Venue Trust said, “The 2024 Annual Report recognises that after 10 years of work by MVT a very broad consensus has been built among policitians, industry, artists and the public that grassroots music venues must be protected, supported, encouraged and nurtured. In 2025, we have to see that consensus bring forward positive, practical interventions in the real world. Venues, despite all the very welcome good intentions and acknowledgements they are receiving for their vital work, are still closing, still under extreme and totally unnecessary financial pressures, still failing to be recognised, as everyone agrees they should and must be, when government designs policy, taxation, and legislation. It isn’t good enough to keep saying how much we all value them, we’ve got to practically do something about it. We need action not words.”
The Anchoress aka Catherine Anne Davies performed a four-song set, including a version of ‘Dylan and Caitlin’ with James Dean Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers. Watch the video below filmed by our own Lucy Bennett.
Later Davies commented “Last year in the UK we lost one grassroots music venue every two weeks – with nearly half making a loss and 200 remaining in a state of emergency as the country faces a collapse in touring.
It’s crucial that we all work together to reach a consensus on how we can solve the current crisis in live music.”
