Music Venue Trust Launch 2024 Annual Report

MVT has launched its 2024 Annual Report, which once again raises concerns about the ongoing challenges facing the sector.

Despite highlighting positive activity such as MVT celebrating its 10th anniversary in 2024, the continued success of Music Venue Properties (MVP), and the publication of a Culture, Media and Sport (CMS) report that made strong recommendations to support grassroots music, it is clear that significant work is still needed to prevent a continued decline of the sector.

A survey of the 810 members of the Music Venue Alliance (MVA) found that on average GMV’s operated on a profit margin of just 0.48% with 43.8% of them reporting a loss in the last 12 months. This means that the sector as a whole effectively subsidised live music activity to the tune of £162m.

In addition MVT’s Emergency Response Service dealt with a 19% increase in cases from 2023.

10 Years of MVT is intended to complement MVT‘s Annual Report 2024. This booklet provides a brief history of the charity’s work to date (a commissioned feature by writer Laura Kelly) and a celebration of key achievements in our mission to protect, secure and improve GMVs across the UK. To download it click here.

To read more and access the full 2024 Annual Report please click here.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

The Government has responded to the Culture Media and Sport Select Committee report on Grassroots Music Venues, released in May 2024. That report contained a number of recommendations from a cross party group of MPs on what must be done to protect live music in our communities.

You can read the Government’s press release here and the Government’s full response to the CMS Select Committee report here.

The Government response is unequivocal. It is now the official policy of the UK Government that every ticket sold at an arena or stadium should contain a financial contribution that supports Grassroots Music Venues, artists and promoters. This represents the single most significant shift in more than fifty years of British music in the basic mechanics of how the live industry financial supports new and emerging talent, the spaces which host it, and the people who take risks to present it. The response from Government in the shape of Minister for Culture Chris Bryant MP’s statement and the commitments by Department for Culture, Media and Sport to see this process through is a resounding success for the advocacy, understanding and support of the grassroots music sector.

The Government’s response is so robust and unequivocal in its support for GMVs, that it is now a question of how and when the grassroots ticketing contribution from stadium and arenas is enacted, and not if.

The ball is firmly in the court of the music industry to quickly and voluntarily establish the mechanisms for delivering the grassroots ticketing contribution. MVT is at the centre of those discussions and having daily conversations with the individuals at the very top of the industry. And the message is clear – get around the table and get this done or expect a statutory levy.

There are many other elements to the CMS Select Committee Report which, together, create a viable, thriving, economically sustainable grassroots ecosystem. Action on Business Rates is coming, discussion on protections in planning, development and licensing for venues are ongoing. And we have not given up on the issue of VAT rates on tickets – still the highest of any similar music making country in the world.

We are working with DCMS, meeting with Government, and engaging individual MPs to continue to push on opportunities for change which can create a supportive framework for grassroots venues, artists and promoters and not one that penalises them for their work.

Thank you to everyone who wrote letters to their MPs, supported our campaigns, posted, tagged, shouted or just simply told someone that this actually matters to our live music community. We can be confident that from April 2026 the operating climate for GMVs will have dramatically improved. Music Venue Trust is now laser focused on the challenges of the next 18 months, the period before this long needed help can really arrive.

The Artist Pledge

Music Venue Trust has been campaigning for the upper echelons of the music industry to reinvest in the grassroots for the past 5 years. Our proposal is simple: Every ticket sold at arena and stadium level contains a levy as a financial contribution back into the grassroots.

We are asking artists to pledge that their future success will acknowledge where they came from and contribute a small amount of money back into the grassroots sector, if and when they reach arena and major festival level.

We want to ensure that the talent pipeline is supported, offering opportunities to a wide range of aspiring musicians from across the UK, so that everyone who dreams of being a musician feels that is a possibility for them.

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