Mark Davyd: Last News

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.

Fatboy Slim, says a beloved Brighton venue faces a “slow death” if planning permission for a new development is allowed to go ahead.More than 1200 people have objected to a planning application for a commercial building next to the Prince Albert pub, located on Trafalgar Street in the city and more than 14,000 have since signed a petition objecting to the plans.The plans would see an existing car rental premises demolished to make way for a four-storey building (via the BBC). The plans will go before Brighton and Hove City Council on Wednesday (November 1).Cook played a surprise gig at the venue on Monday (October 30).

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.

Music Venue Trust (MVT) to help support UK grassroots venues.Ticketmaster will now have a Music Venue Trust charity upsell option, enabling fans to make direct contributions to MVT when purchasing tickets. Music Venue Trust helps to support grassroots venues.The upsell will launch on Venues Day 2023 (October 17), an initiative that’s been sponsored by Ticketmaster since 2016.

NME about how the situation is “as dire as it can be” with more than one grassroots venue closing in the UK every week.Last week NME reported that the UK stood to lose 10 per cent of its grassroots music venues in 2023, as calls grew louder for the “major leagues” of the music industry and larger venues to do more to pay into the ecosystem and save them.Now, the MVT has doubled down on that call as well as shared an open letter to demand that the UK Government extends business rate relief for its members after 78 music venues closed their doors over the last 12 months, with many more set to follow.“Between us finishing our report at Friday at 5pm and coming back at 10am on Monday morning, two more venues closed,” MVT CEO Mark Davyd told NME, paying tribute to Jimmy’s in Liverpool and The Brass in Hastings, which both announced their closure on Saturday (September 23) and Sunday (September 24) respectively.A post shared by Jimmy's (@jimmys)Davyd continued: “Our report shows that we’ve gone from 960 venues in October of last year to 835 that are actually operating. That’s 125 less and a 15.7 per cent decline.

Enter Shikari’s £1 per ticket sold donation to the MVT when they perform in February 2024. There will also be opportunities for additional fundraising activity for GMVs via tickets for events at ASM Global venues.Mark Davyd, the CEO of Music Venue Trust, said in a press release: “We want to thank ASM Global for being the first arena operators to respond to our call for support from the live music industry to deal with the crisis engulfing grassroots music venues.“This is an incredibly important first step towards ensuring that when an artist emerges from the grassroots sector, everyone shares in the success they generate once they reach the very top of the industry.

Enter Shikari have announced the dates of a UK tour in 2024 – including a number of arena shows – with plans to donate £1 from every ticket sold to the Music Venue Trust to support grassroots venues in each city they visit.“Grassroots music venues in the UK are under existential threat”, says frontman Rou Reynolds. “Every time we lose another one we lose a vital part of our culture”.“Bigger venues that benefit from the productive pipeline that grassroots venues provide need to support these smaller venues, as do the artists that have come up through them”, he adds.

Access All Areas, the final contract for the development is predicted to be signed this summer and on-sight developments are expected to begin in January 2024.Last month, upcoming arenas were put under scrutiny when pressures mounted, encouraging them to invest back into grassroots music spaces – or else not be allowed to open.Launched by the Music Venue Trust, a 2022 annual report laid out the value of the sector and highlighted the danger that the UK economy faced if smaller venues did not receive support from arenas or other high-capacity locations.“I’m putting the music industry on notice: we are over the edge,” Mark Davyd, sharing the report at the Houses Of Parliament. “We’re not near the edge, we’re over the edge and we’re tumbling down.

over 75 per cent of its £2.5million target to take public ownership of nine grassroots venues “but there’s only five days until its final deadline of March 30th to secure the remaining investment needed,” said the organisation.“#OwnOurVenues is the first step in a long-term campaign to take control of the freeholds of UK grassroots music venue premises and bring them under a protected status of benevolent ownership.”“The initiative is seeking to acquire nine venues in its first phase. On completion of the purchase, the venues will be offered an immediate rent reduction and help contribute to building repairs and insurance, while also guaranteeing long-term security and market-resistant rents.”“Since its launch, hundreds of individuals, companies and organisations have already pledged their support to the project.”5 days to go! Help us end one of the biggest problems facing Grassroots Music Venues: ownership.

launched by the Music Venue Trust last year is closing in on its £2.5million fundraising target.The project, which was launched in May 2022, aims to secure the long-term futures of grassroots venues by purchasing the venues’ freeholds to bring them under community ownership. It has previously been likened to “The National Trust, but for venues’”and is based on the Community Share model that has been used to protect the future of pubs, post offices and sports grounds.Now, the MVT has said it has raised £1.8million of the necessary money and has set a deadline of March 30 to secure the remaining investment needed to start purchasing venues.

MVT stood in parliament and told MPs and the music industry that we have a very serious problem with Grassroots Music Venues and it was going to need decisive action,” Music Venue Trust CEO Mark Davyd recently told NME.“One Grassroots Music Venue is closing every week. If the government don’t act on Energy Bills before 1 April, that number will rise.

Details of the scheme and what constitutes a grassroots music venue can be found here, with applications to be filed here. Funding for the initiative comes from the MVT’s Revive Live tour, which took place this summer and saw Charli XCX, Paolo Nutini, Sleaford Mods and more perform at small venues around the country.Of the new fund, Music Venue Trust CEO Mark Davyd said: “We have been working on music industry based funding support for Grassroots Music Venues since 2018.

Ed Sheeran has backed the Music Venue Trust’s (MVT) ‘Own Our Venues’ campaign, which highlights the need for ownership in the UK’s grassroots music venues.The initiative was first announced in May, following the news that legendary venues North London’s Nambucca and Sheffield’s Leadmill were closing their doors or under threat, respectively.The ‘Own Our Venues’ campaign is built on the Community Share model, which has previously formed a successful way of protecting local pubs, post offices and sports grounds. The MVT has identified nine venues to be involved in a pilot project, with further venue freeholds to be secured as and when they become available.Once venues have been purchased, an immediate rent reduction will be offered, while help will also be given towards building repairs and insurance.

five organisations representing the UK hospitality sector penned an open letter to the UK government amid the ongoing cost of living crisis. They highlighted “rocketing energy prices” that were forecast to become “a matter of existential emergency” this year, and demanded urgent government action to prevent a catastrophe to UK culture.Mark Davyd, MVT CEO, spoke to NME at the time about the true threat posed by the looming price hike.

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.Music Venue Trust (MVT) CEO Mark Davyd spoke to NME at the time about the true threat posed by the looming price rise. He compared it to the COVID pandemic, which at one point saw 93 per cent of the UK’s grassroots music venues under threat of being closed forever due to losses caused by restrictions.Mark Davyd explained: “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.

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.

NME, MVT Ownership Coordinator Matt Otridge said of the Own Our Venues campaign: “It’s essentially a not-for-profit, charitable organisation that allows us to raise funds via community shares, which then allows anybody who invests money to be a part of that society. So it’s very equitable – one investment equals one vote at AGMs – it’s completely community focused, and it’s a good mechanism to promote longevity and community aspirations.”He continued: “We’re calling this bit the pilot project, and we’re hoping that eventually it will grow and grow into a point where we have hundreds of venues that are owned by Music Venue Properties and hundreds of venues that would benefit from having a landlord that literally can’t be motivated by profits because it’s a not-for-profit organisation, as well as a landlord that shares their ambitions in seeing more money going back into the circuit.”If the music community wants grassroots music venues to be protected, to be secure, to be improved, to be everything they can be for the future of live music, then the music community must #OwnOurVenues— Music Venue Trust (@musicvenuetrust) April 26, 2022Recent calls for music venues to own their own buildings instead of separate landlords have been growing louder, especially with Sheffield’s iconic The Leadmill under threat.

revealed earlier this month ahead of the Chancellor’s Spring Statement on March 23.VAT is currently charged at 12.5 per cent on tickets for live events but Rishi Sunak is restoring the tax return to its pre-pandemic level of 20 per cent.Music Venue Trust boss Mark Davyd wrote on Twitter: “Super soar-away non-sale sale final closing day! Tomorrow the U.K. Government will return to taxing live music gigs with one of the highest rates of VAT on tickets in the world.

The Music Venue Trust launched a new campaign to save 30 UK venues still in danger of being lost forever in the wake of coronavirus restrictions.MVT’s new #SaveThe30 ‘Traffic Light’ campaign will highlight the venues considered safe, at risk or in imminent danger between now and March 31. Venues in ‘critical’ red status include The Lexington in London, Brixton Windmill, The Venue in Derby, The Railway Inn in Winchester, The Gellions in Inverness and The Lantern in Halifax.“If we don’t act to save them right now, we do expect a large number of them to be permanently closed – it’s as simple as that,” Music Venue Trust CEO Mark Davyd told NME.

the government’s new six-month Jobs Support Scheme that is set to replace furlough – claiming that it doesn’t appear to meet the specific needs that have put many workers at risk.Today (September 24), Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced details of the government’s new Winter Economy Plan for the next six months , including a top up of the wages of workers for the next six months, covering up to two thirds of their pay packet with workers having to work at least a third of their usual hours to qualify for the scheme.

coronavirus pandemic.The BBC Radio 6 Music DJ praised Davyd, who is behind the successful #SaveOurVenues campaign which has so far raised over £1.2 million for the 556 venues at risk of closure, in a new interview.The impact of those funds was bolstered last month by the UK government announcing emergency grants to the first 135 venue beneficiaries of its Culture Recovery Fund.Speaking to Music Week, Lamacq praised the work of Davyd and the MVT as “unbelievable”.“If Mark doesn’t get an MBE at the end of all of this then I shall be thoroughly annoyed, because he deserves one for services to live music,” Lamacq said.“The MVT has been unbelievable.