IQ reports that at least four new music venues will open in London in 2016, as the grassroots sector begins to rebound from recent troubles. DHP Family recently acquired ex-MAMA & Company venues The Borderline in Soho and The Garage in Highbury from Live Nation, while Steve Ball’s Columbo Group snapped up Camden’s The Jazz Cafe and The Barfly from the same company. The Jazz Cafe recently reopened, with The Barfly to be relaunched as The Camden Assembly in the coming months.
And Music Week reports that more than one in three attendees at live music events in Britain last year were music tourists – an increase of 16% on 2014. A total of 10.4 million music tourists attended UK festivals and concerts in 2015, of which 767,000 were from overseas, reveals UK Music’s Wish You Were Here 2016 report, released today. Foreign concertgoers bought £38m worth of tickets and spent an average of £852 each (up 13% on 2014). The report also revealed that music tourists spent a total of £3.7 billion in 2015, with 39,034 full-time jobs reliant on the sector. It was also strong year for British live music in general, with 3.7m people attending a festival and 24m at least one concert
http://www.iq-mag.net/2016/06/london-resurgent-capitals-venues-fight-back/#.V1qswLsrKM8
London Mayor Boris Johnson has promised to protect live music venues in the capital following a large number of closures in recent years. A new report, titled London's Grassroots Music Venues Rescue Plan, found that the number of grassroots music venues has decreased by 35 per cent since 2007, with just 88 remaining. Responding to the report, Johnson now vows to introduce new measures to help "safeguard and revive" live music in London. The threat to the remaining venues from rising rents, licensing restrictions, noise complaints and housing development has prompted fears for the long-term future of the UK’s £3.8 billion music industry.The report recommends that developers, not venues themselves, will be responsible for problems (such as noise complaints) that might arise between new residents and a longstanding venue and an Amsterdam-style “night mayor” would bring together businesses, residents, local authorities, transport and police to maximise the sector’s potential. "From the Rolling Stones to David Bowie, the Clash to Oasis and Ed Sheeran to Adele, grassroots music venues have played a key role in enabling some of the biggest names in music to develop as artists and to build audiences. They are the incubators for the stars that go on to pack stadiums in London and across the world," Johnson told City AM.
And smaller music venues should apply for more arts funding to help keep their doors open, Culture Minister Ed Vaizey said at the Music Venue Day conference in London: "A vibrant music venue which is breaking new acts has just as much right to be considered a cultural venue as a local or regional theatre", he said, according to the BBC.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/boris-backs-plan-for-night-mayor-to-oversee-capitals-nighttime-economy-a3093941.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-34579930
The Music Venue Trust has published an interim report into the challenges currently facing small venues in the UK - with a full report set to follow in March. Perhaps unsurprisingly, noise complaints and the threat to pre-existing venues when residential neighbours move in are prominent features. Diminishing audiences at a grass roots level were also of concern, with various causes suggested. The recession was an obvious one, while some venue operators also said that the student audiences they rely on had dwindled, in part due to increased tuition fees. The Live Music Act also faced criticism: The Act which had widespread industry support, removed the red tape surrounding putting on small gigs in pubs and small venues and some respondents say this more competition for venues focused on new music, proving right predictions made by former Luminaire owner Andy Inglis in 2013.
PRS For Music also comes in for criticism in the report, with the music publishing sector's collecting society accused of trying to collect money from venues that don't play PRS-registered music and charging more than many small venues can afford in fees, which then put them at risk of going out of business.
Announcing the report, Music Venue Trust CEO Mark Davyd said: "There is a national challenge to our live music venue circuit brought about by a sequence of events and developments which have left that network in a perilous and precarious state. Music Venue Trust feels that we need to take an overall view of the challenges out there".
He went on: "We need to be openly discussing and airing those challenges with our live music industry colleagues, and working together to tackle that range of issues so we not only maintain and preserve this circuit but actively start to improve it. We feel that past failures to talk about the ecosystem of UK music have meant that people who don't actively work in it perhaps don't understand the structure of the industry, or the vital role that this network of venues plays in maintaining it".
"The UK is, quite literally, a music world leader, punching vastly above its weight in terms of the impact our artists and musicians make across the globe. A huge proportion of the music we export, which generates thousands of jobs, develops the artistic careers of our best writers and musicians, and is such an important part of the UK's standing on the international cultural stage, starts in a small venue. This is the grassroots of our industry, the research and development department of our major international music industry partners. It is impossible to overstate this enough; no Troubadour or 12 Bar Club, no Adele".
"Our UK music scene, arguably the best in the world, is built on a robust ecosystem that starts with a first live concert in front of as few as ten people on a Tuesday night in Guildford and climaxes with three nights at Wembley Stadium. And it's not just the musicians - our industry and other parts of the creative sector are filled with people who cut their teeth promoting, booking or simply working the door at a small venue. This small venue circuit is the training ground and the entry level experience for our lighting engineers, sound technicians, and cultural organisers at all levels; we need to ensure we do all we can to protect it".
Residential developers building next to existing live music venues will have to foot the bill for sound-proofing under new planning changes to be introduced by the Victorian Government. The "agent of change" principle, which will also apply to new music venues, will put the responsibility of noise mitigation on the new development, not the existing businesses and residents nearby. Planning Minister Matthew Guy said once the new regulations are in place, established pubs and clubs will not be forced to close due to noise complaints from new neighbours saying "Should an apartment block or others move next door to an existing music venue, it is then incumbent upon those people to ensure they have adequate noise and soundproofing requirements in place for themselves, rather than putting that onus upon the live music venue". Whilst it has been argued that a clear definition of what constitutes a 'live music venue' is needed, the Planning Minister said that the changes meant that Victoria will have the strongest level of protection for live music venues in Australia : "We are doing absolutely everything we can as a government to ensure live music is vibrant and a strong part of Melbourne's cultural scene," Mr Guy said.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-04/live-music-sound-proofing-law-change-in-victoria/5646570
The Music Venue Trust has launched a petition calling on the UK's Secretary Of State For The Environment Owen Paterson to "carry out an urgent review of noise abatement legislation", after concerns that long-standing gig venues could face closure because of a small number of noise complaints. The move comes as two venues, Night & Day in Manchester and The Blind Tiger in Brighton (right) have recently run into problems after their respective local councils received complaints from local residents about noise. In both cases it has been alleged that the complaints have come from people who have relatively recently moved into properties near the venues. And then complain.
AEG's David Jones highlighted the growing importance of digital communication at the popular New Technology Panel at ILMC 24 and explained about AEG's moves to provide wi-fi access for fans and venues. Now the San Jose Mercury News announced that the NBA's Golden State Warriors have launched a free Wi-Fi network within their Oracle Arena However, the Wi-Fi network is said to be only the tip of the technological iceberg for the Warriors. "We're really just scratching the surface," Warriors' team president Rick Wells told the Mercury News, "I really feel like sports will benefit as much as anything from technology today." In addition to the Warriors' free Wi-Fi network, the team's management has also installed a new antenna system that will improve cell phone reception within the arena, tackling one of the most common complaints from sporting patrons. Finally, the Warriors have most recently launched an iPhone app for fans. Other venues are similarly gearing up for the digital age: The NFL's San Franciso 49ers announced that their new stadium will be crafted with an eye to appeasing the technological needs of their fans and when the New York jets and Giants built their new MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, they spared no expense in giving fans the technology they desired. The stadium partnered with Verizon to create a "high-speed wireless network" to allow fans the ability to utilize their phones as they wished and an app was released allowing fans access to up-to-the-minute team information, parking alerts, and information on which concession lines were the shortest.
