NME that comments made by Manchester’s Co-Op Live Arena about grassroots venues are “disrespectful and disingenuous”.Earlier this week, the executive director of the major new 23,500 capacity venue said that some smaller venues in the UK are “poorly run” and dismissed calls for a £1 ticket levy on all gigs arena-sized and above.Gary Roden told the BBC he believes the levy is “too simplistic”, and says it should fall on the government rather than major arenas to support the live music ecosystem.“If the conversation stops being ‘Give me a quid’ and quite aggressive – if it changed to be, ‘What can we do together to help?’, that’s where I think we start to get into that apprenticeship conversation and all those different things that we want to work through,” he said.In response, Mark Davyd, CEO of the Music Venue Trust, has told NME that he believes Roden’s comments are “disrespectful and disingenuous”, while also highlighting the irony of making such “ill-judged, unnecessary and misleading” remarks on the week that their own venue was forced to postpone their own launch, due to a number of logistical problems.“It is regrettable that the owners of Co-Op Live have consistently declined invitations to engage properly in the discussion about the future of the UK’s live music ecosystem so that the team there could have a full understanding of the challenges and issues facing the grassroots music sector, venues, artists and promoters,” Davyd said.“This lack of willingness to play a role in that ecosystem unfortunately leads them to make ill-judged and poorly considered comments about the sector’s approach to the discussions, the professionalism of the people running the venues, the possibility for [Co-Op Live commercial partner]
