Birmingham City Council announce “alarming” budget cuts

nme.com:

BBC).The cuts will also hit the city’s cultural life, with music venues expected to be impacted. Among the announced casualties are funding for the Birmingham International Dance Festival, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the IKON Gallery.Lyle Bignon, who represents the Night Time Industries Association for Birmingham, has said: “The proposed cuts to council culture budgets confirm what many of us working in arts, culture, entertainment, music and NTE in Birmingham have known for some time.“Our city’s council, regional authorities, and key agencies have simply not placed enough value on culture over the years, despite its proven social and economic benefits.”“[These] announcements sound a major alarm for Birmingham’s creative community as well as cultural professionals and audiences across the UK,” Bignon added.The news comes at a time when the national infrastructure around live music is at a crisis point.

Last month, a report was published by the Music Venues Trust (MVT) outlining the “disaster” that struck the UK’s grassroots music venues in 2023, with calls increasing for a ticket levy on larger arenas and investment from the wider industry.Last year saw the MVT deliver their first annual report at the Houses Of Parliament – warning grassroots gig spaces in the UK were “going over a cliff” without urgent government action and investment from new large arenas.

After the stark warning that the UK was set to lose 10 per cent of its grassroots music venues in 2023, the MVT and others from the sector ended the year by telling NME how 2023 was the “worst year for venue closures” while “no one in music industry seems to care”.Among the MVT’s key findings into their “most challenging year”, it has been reported.