Mark Davyd: Last News

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30 years since Oasis kicked off their debut UK tour, only six of those venues remain open

Oasis‘ debut UK tour, it’s been revealed that only six of the venues they played remain open today.In a new report from the BBC, nine of the 15 venues from Oasis’ 1994 tour for ‘Supersonic’ have now stopped putting on gigs or have closed. This includes the recently shut Moles in Bath, which closed last December after a 45-year run.
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This is what the Glastonbury 2024 line-up would look like without grassroots music venues
Glastonbury line-up poster has been edited to remove every artist that started their career in grassroots venues – and hardly any names are left standing.The first taste of the festival’s 2024 line-up was shared on Thursday (March 14), with Dua Lipa, Coldplay and SZA topping the bill.But as revealed by the Music Venue Trust’s edit of the poster on social media, the vast majority of the dozens of names announced so far started their careers coming through the small music venues that now find themselves straining under unbearable pressure in the UK in 2024.Yesterday I was read a quote from a senior figure in the live music industry which ran as follows: “We don’t see any problems in the pipeline for developing the next Ed Sheeran's etc due to grassroots music venues closing, the headliners are still coming”I call bullshit. https://t.co/vGe4RlBUIx— Mark Davyd (@markdavyd) March 16, 2024Only names such as Nigerian afrobeats superstar Burna Boy, the K-pop group SEVENTEEN and Camila Cabello, who rose to fame on the US version of The X Factor, remain when the direct beneficiaries of grassroots venues are taken away.Music Venue Trust CEO Mark Davyd commented on the edited poster, writing on X/Twitter: “Yesterday I was read a quote from a senior figure in the live music industry which ran as follows: ‘We don’t see any problems in the pipeline for developing the next Ed Sheerans etc.
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Scotland is “seriously considering” ticket levy on stadium and arena gigs to support grassroots venues
Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Harry Styles to pay a levy to help the nation’s small and medium-sized live music spaces.Angus Robertson, SNP Culture Secretary, has said he would consider the tax amid concerns over the future of arts funding in Scotland.It came after he was questioned in Holyrood by Green MSP Mark Ruskell, who suggested that the introduction of just a £1 levy on each ticket could help raise over a million pounds per year.Robertson went on to say that “new thinking” was needed in terms of arts funding in the country.He explained: “We have gone through a pivot point during the pandemic; there has been a change in social behaviours and there has been extreme distress in the arts and cultural sector.“We acknowledge that and we have tried to support the sector through that difficult period.”Robertson added: “The levy proposal is worthy of further consideration.”The Music Venue Trust (MVT) said 120 grassroots venues have closed across Britain in 2023 alone, and that Scotland is “disproportionately” affected (via The Times).Those in favour of the levy have suggested that the additional £1 would go unnoticed by most concertgoers as tickets for these huge shows usually have high prices to begin with.However, critics have claimed that the tax could further price out those on lower incomes because these concerts are already expensive and come with additional fees.Tickets for Taylor Swift‘s upcoming ‘Eras Tour’ dates at the Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh, for example, cost £109.40 for general standing access.
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Grassroots venues need “action not kind words” as they had for “disaster” without arena investment
Music Venue Trust (MVT) have said that grassroots venues in the UK are heading for “disaster” without intervention as more venues face closure – repeating the call for large arenas to invest back into the grassroots.Speaking on a panel about the future of grassroots music at Manchester’s inaugural ‘Beyond The Music‘ conference on Friday (October 13), Mark Davyd, CEO of MVT, said over the last 12 months, “127 music venues of the grassroots type have stopped programming live music or closed down entirely” – something he described as a “fucking disaster” – despite the fact 2023 has been “the best year in history for live music receipts” with the industry making over £765million in 2022.Davyd, who was speaking on a panel alongside representatives from Manchester’s AO Arena, Manchester’s Co-op Live, MIF/Factory International and Rachael Flaszczak, Managing Director of The Snug – a venue that was recently saved by MVT under its new ownership scheme – said “it’s completely unacceptable that our music industry is letting music collapse underneath it while it’s making the maximum amount of money it’s ever made in the history of music.”He continued: “That is ridiculous. It’s totally unacceptable to me.
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Government warned: “Without immediate action, energy crisis will close more venues than COVID”
COVID pandemic unless the government takes immediate action.Earlier this week, five organisations representing the UK hospitality sector penned an open letter to the UK government, highlighting “rocketing energy prices” that are forecast to become “a matter of existential emergency” later this year – and demanding that the government act soon to prevent a catastrophe to UK culture.In the hospitality sector, operators are facing average annual bill increases in the region of at least 300 per cent, meaning that many businesses and jobs in the sector are “at grave risk”.Now, Music Venue Trust CEO Mark Davyd has spoken to NME of the true threat posed by the looming price rise, comparing it to the COVID pandemic which at one point saw 93 per cent of the UK’s grassroots music venues were under threat of being closed forever due to losses caused by restrictions.“Without action from the government, we are now modelling that this will close more venues than the pandemic,” he argued. “We don’t see any other outcome.”He continued: “It feels weird to say it, but unlike during COVID when you could go, ‘OK, we need to raise some money now because in a year’s time the venues will be open’, we can’t do that now because they’ll have to pay another electricity bill next year and the year after that, obviously.
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