London, February 3rd 2021 – Music Venue Trust (MVT), which represents hundreds of UK grassroots music venues (GMVs), has announced that 13 out of the 30 GMVs on their Save Our Venue Red List – which highlights those venues at imminent danger of permanent closure – have successfully been removed from immediate threat.
In November the charity revealed its Traffic Light campaign, a new phase of its hugely successful #saveourvenues campaign which is seeking to reopen every venue safely after the Covid crisis. The Traffic Light campaign threw the focus of the Charities fundraising work behind securing the future of 30 venues who were ineligible to receive funding from, or wholly or partially unsuccessful in their application to, the government backed Culture Recovery Funds.
As a result of the amazing success of the campaign and a combined effort by audiences, local communities, local councils and the creative community, these 13 venues have now been removed from the ‘red list’:
Arden Inn, Accrington,
Backstage Kinross
Boulevard, Wigan
Four Horsemen, Bournemouth
Gellions, Inverness
Hootenanny, Inverness
Plot 22, Sheffield
Rossi Bar in Brighton
Strange Brew, Bristol
The Brunswick, Hove
The Grand Elektra/ The Crypt, Hastings
The Railway Inn, Winchester
Waterloo Bar, Blackpool
Mark Davyd, CEO of Music Venue Trust, said, “We want to thank every artist, every audience member, every member of our community for taking direct action which means we are able to remove these 13 venues from the Red List right now. The love shown for these venues continues to demonstrate how important they are to people and to our towns and cities. Music Venue Trust is committed to reopening every venue safely and we are going to carry on working through this crisis until that outcome is achieved.”
Speaking about the news Ambre France, owner of Rossi Bar, said “We are incredibly grateful to have been part of MVT’s Red List campaign, which highlighted the probability of our imminent closure as a venue if we had not had support from the public. Our struggle was shared with other venues in the same position as ours and spotlighted in the public eye. This led to targeted promotion, press opportunities and financial support through the sale of merchandise, paid for by MVT. We were also extremely lucky to receive a £5K grant from MVT.
We have been overwhelmed by the generosity of this charity, for helping us navigate through the last year but also for coaching us through such gruelling funding applications. We hope that a successful CRF2 bid and the support we have received through MVT will leave in us a stable position and feeling hopeful for the future of our small grassroots music venue.”
Music Venue Trust is now reviewing the position of all other grassroots music venues to analyse which venues are at risk and need to be moved onto the red list. See the national map HERE. The single landing page for the crowdfunding initiative powered by Crowdfunder can be viewed at www.crowdfunder.co.uk/save-our-venues-red-list. People can choose an individual venue to donate to and if an individual target is reached by a particular venue the surplus donations will go towards supporting other venues in crisis.
Grassroots music venues play a crucial role in the development of British music, nurturing local talent, providing a platform for artists to build their careers and develop their music and their performance skills. These venues also play a vital role in the cultural and economic vibrancy of any village, town or city.
A range of merchandise is exclusively available to support this campaign. Every item bought directly supports a venue, with MVT paying the costs of printing, packing and delivery.
For more information on the #saveourvenues campaign please visit: www.saveourvenues.co.uk
