Become a Member of The Trade Association of the Music Venues Alliance

In a week of BIG announcements for grassroots music venues, with reports in Edinburgh and London both being released and Venues Day 2015 now completely sold out, we are delighted to make one additional announcement.

We are launching the Trade Association of the Music Venues Alliance (TAMVA) at Venues Day 2015.

TAMVA membership will offer grassroots music venues preferential and exclusive deals on insurance, legal support, finance, ticketing, business costs, and audience development and promotion. It will offer free advice on business development, business planning and sustainability and infrastructure and access.

The Music Venue Trust will act on behalf of TAMVA to secure those benefits.

As we launch TAMVA, the membership package will deliver between £4,000 and £18,000 in direct financial benefits and promotional activity to every member. This is real support flooding into the sector from partners such as TicketWeb UK, ticketea, Music Glue, SEE Tickets and Ents24.

It’s a distribution deal for grassroots music venues to host NME Magazine, access to financial advice and guidance from Creative Industry Finance, and brokered bespoke insurance deals from Robertson Taylor W&P Longreach.

Mark Davyd, CEO of the Music Venue Trust says:

“With TAMVA we are sending out a message loud and clear to everybody who has an interest this sector surviving and thriving; we’re doing what we can.

The grassroots music venues are organising themselves, and working collectively, now we need everybody else in government, the cultural sector and the music industry to get behind us.

It’s a simple four stage programme – cut the costs, get legal support in place, deregulate so it’s easier to do our jobs, and get investment into this sector so that artists and audiences get the venues the UK deserves.”.

Venues can learn all about TAMVA and become members at Venues Day, or see below, where pre-registration for TAMVA membership is now open.


What is the Music Venues Alliance?

The Music Venues Alliance was formed in January 2015 as an informal association of venues and other organisations/individuals passionate about this part of the music industry who have given their support to the work of the Music Venue Trust. With the weight of over 200 Alliance members behind it, in the last year MVT has made real headway for grassroots music venues.

Some of the achievements include:

• Successfully delivering the first ever networking event for small venues, Venues Day 2014 at Southbank Centre, London on 9 December 2014. This event brought together representatives from over 120 venues across the UK and led to the formation of the MVA.
• Conducting research culminating in the Understanding Small Music Venues report, launched in Parliament in March 2015.
• A petition, fronted by Frank Turner, to call for the adoption of Agent of Change, has been signed by over 31K people and the concept is now being widely discussed at various levels of government across the UK.
• Instigating a Grassroots Investors Programme to raise money to work on behalf of the network of small venues across the UK.
• Leading the Mayor of London’s Venues Taskforce to halt the decline of music venues in the capital and delivering the report (London’s Grassroots Music Venues Rescue Plan) issued on 19 October 2015 which calls for changes to licensing, planning, regulation and business terms which will all benefit London venues and act as an example to the rest of the UK.
• Speaking at international conferences to present the situation for venues in the UK and participating in international research reports such as Music Canada’s The Mastering of a Music City.
• Consulting for City of Edinburgh Council to try and improve relations between it and the city’s music community, resulting in a report issued 20 October 2015 which calls for direct action by Edinburgh City Council to protect and secure its live music venues.
• An ongoing series of meetings with DCMS, MPs and Lords, music industry associations, legal and financial bodies to seek improvements for GMVs.
• Delivering Venues Day 2015 at Ministry of Sound on 20 October 2015. Over 150 venues were represented among the 350 delegates; guest speakers included MPs, key figures from the music industry and Steve Lamacq from BBC Radio 6 Music. A series of panels and workshops on the themes of Business Up/Costs Down offered practical solutions for venues to strengthen their business.

We believe the power of a collective voice has shown real gains for grassroots music venues across the UK, and now we want to go even further. We want to make a real difference to the day-to-day finances of music venues, improve the quality. We want to meet the core aim of the Music Venue Trust: To protect, secure and improve the UK’s grassroots music venues.

To achieve that, we have created TAMVA – the Trade Association of the Music Venues Alliance. Full details of this are on the following sheet. Membership of TAMVA is open to Grassroots Music Venues only: we have criteria to judge whether a venue is a GMV so welcome applications from venues that think they might be and we can discuss eligibility. For other venues, organisations or individuals who would like to support the work of MVT, you can still join the MVA.

Going forward MVT will work most closely with TAMVA members to develop its work. However, we will continue to send updates to MVA members and consult with them. If you would like to be part of this then please ‘opt in’ to the MVA by completing the following form and cutting and pasting it into an email to beverley@musicvenuetrust.com


Music Venues Alliance Opt-in Form

Contact Name: ________________________

Email: ________________________

Venue Name: ________________________

Town / City: ________________________

Capacity: ________________________

Type of venue or organisation*: ________________________

Website: ________________________

Facebook: ________________________

*dedicated music venue, pub with live music, nightclub with live bands, venue with live electronic music etc. If not a venue please answer with organisation name eg. Musicians’ Union, UK Music, Primary Music Talent, ACE etc. if you represent a music industry or arts organisation, or for individuals Musician, Music Fan, Journalist etc.


Trade Association of the Music Venues Alliance

Membership is open to grassroots music venues across the UK in three category sizes:

Small GMC (Less than 350 capacity): £500 per annum
Medium GMV (351 to 650 capacity): £750 per annum
Large GMV (Over 651 capacity): £1000 per annum

TAMVA membership will offer your venue preferential and exclusive deals on insurance, legal support, finance, ticketing, business costs, and audience development and promotion. It will offer free advice on business development, business planning and sustainability and infrastructure and access. Music Venue Trust will act on behalf of TAMVA to secure those benefits.

At launch, the existing benefits we have secured include:

• Exclusive deals from all major ticketing agencies (Ticketweb, See Tickets, Ticketea, Eventim, MusicGlue, We Got Tickets, Gigantic) to provide a ticketing service rebate direct to your venue as a TAMVA member – start earning a rebate as soon as you become a TAMVA member
• Exclusive access to bespoke music venue insurance package from Robertson Taylor/Prosight that aims to improve your insurance cover and reduce your cost
• Exclusive TAMVA offer to distribute the NME at your venue
• Exclusive access to the 1,2 Project from Creative United, providing business advise and access to bespoke loans
• Exclusive package of promotional support from Ents 24 – a £1000 package of promo around your venue delivered direct to over a million subscribers
• No Cost Initial Access to Licensing, Planning, Acoustics and Legal Gurus
• Two free delegate passes to Venues Day 2016
• Use of the Music Venues Alliance logo on all your media and stationary and at your venue – a kite mark that you are part of a UK network

Dependent on the size of your venue, this package will deliver between £4,000 and £18,000 in direct financial benefits and promotional activity.

With TAMVA membership you can get all the benefits of working collectively whilst maintaining your independence. You can ensure that we have a collective voice that speaks to government, the cultural sector, brands and the music industry to get what we need. The more TAMVA members there are, the more we can do.

How to become a member

Join the Trade Association of the Music Venues Alliance by emailing beverley@musicvenuetrust.com