Grassroots venues face closure if 21st June opening date is delayed, Music Venue Trust Warns

The Music Venue Trust has warned that grassroots venues will face closure if the UK’s 21st June reopening date is delayed.

With rumours gathering pace that the UK government may delay the full relaxation of social distancing measures currently planned for June 21st, LIVE, the industry body working together to assist artists, venues, management and more during the COVID-19 pandemic, has published new research about the impact of the potential delay. 

In the report details, which were published by NME, LIVE stated that the possibility of a four-week delay to the government’s roadmap would cost the live music sector over £500million, and force 5,000 scheduled shows to postpone or cancel. 

Greg Parmley, CEO of LIVE, said: “The government has said it wants to protect the domestic unlock at all costs, but delaying the roadmap leaves us in limbo – unable to proceed with plans and enjoy our summer at home, forced to abandon large scale events that the public are so looking forward to after a year of cancellations.”

In another report compiled by the Music Venue Trust, the organisation has warned the UK government that clubs face “an immediate financial and confidence crisis” should the delay happen, and more that £14.3m of assistance would be required within weeks to keep venues afloat.

Mark Davyd, chief executive of Music Venue Trust, told TheTicketingBusiness: “If the Government decides on a delay on the basis of evidence about the risk to public health we would like to see and review that evidence, especially the evidence from the Social Distancing Review and the Events Research Programme, both of which were due to be published before the end of May and neither of which have been made available.

“In the event of such a delay being required by the evidence, the Government, being the source of the decision, has a duty to bring forward a comprehensive financial package immediately which would prevent the closure of premises, job losses and businesses failures.”

When requesting the information from venues, MVT maintained that venues should “not assume any change to dates is likely or possible because of this survey”.

Earlier this week, the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) issued a warning that any such delaying decisions would be “catastrophic” for the hospitality and night-time sectors.

“Night Time economy businesses have waited patiently for their opportunity to open for 15 months,” the NTIA’s CEO, Michael Kill, said, adding that “many have not survived, some are on a cliff edge, hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost, a huge pool of talent has been swept away and left to suffer extreme financial hardship”.