Centre Stage: Mark Davyd on why hope is not enough for grassroots venues

Music Venue Trust CEO Mark Davyd’s monthly deep dive into live music’s biggest issues... Here is the good news: the number of grassroots music venues closing every week has rapidly declined throughout 2024. From a peak of five closures in one week in May 2023, every month successively for the last 12 months, fewer venue operators have made the decision to close their doors to live music. As I write this, we are about to experience the first month for nearly two years which will not have seen a single GMV closure announced. That’s a very big moment in the campaign to stop the loss of live music. It also comes with a huge dose of reality: the problem hasn’t gone away or been conquered, it has been shunted to one side by a massive dose of hope injected into the sector. Starting in October 2023 at the Music Venue Trust’s Venues Day, when the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee announced a public inquiry into the challenges faced by GMVs, there has been a definite sense that action is finally being taken to directly tackle the loss of live music. It’s been a good year for hope, from being listened to by MP members of the committee in January and February, to statements of support from artists in March and April. Elsewhere, there was seeing the live inquiry and hearing that music industry professionals planned to take their challenges on in May. Plus, we saw more statements of financial support from artists and brands in June and July – culminating with the announcement from Coldplay in August that their stadium shows would contribute to the grassroots sector. It’s important to understand how valuable this hope is in this sector. You can’t make a profit putting on live music at a grassroots level. The cost of delivering those events exceeds the potential income from selling tickets by such an amount that everyone doing it knows there has to be a huge change in how we finance it, or else entry-level live music experiences in our town and cities will simply keel over. How big is the gap between income and expenditure? In 2023, venues raised £134 million from ticket sales and spent £248 million on live music. For years, venue operators have been delivering live music without any hope of the radical change to the live music model that is required. Too many of them have had to face the financial reality that they were not running the business through a difficult patch until things improved; they were running it in entirely new market conditions where the cost of rent, services, supplies and staffing had escalated way beyond any prospect of covering those costs. In 2023, 125 of them made the difficult decision to close their live music offer down rather than keep plugging away at it. They didn’t have any hope of change. Hope is the element that has dramatically reduced venue closures. The grassroots sector finally believes that genuine change is coming. They’ve seen the evidence from LIVE, from Concert Promoters Association, National Arenas Association, Featured Artists Coalition, Music Managers Forum and others. They also believe what the Select Committee was told: that the live music industry is serious about tackling its grassroots ecosystem challenges and that it is determined to find solutions and financial support. They believe that if that change doesn’t come, the government will act to make it happen, and they finally have hope that if they can just keep going for a little while longer, things are going to get better. However, hope hasn’t changed the reality on the ground for most venue operators. There are currently more live cases of possible permanent closure in MVT’s Emergency Response Service than at any point in our 10-year history. More than during the pandemic, more than during the crisis year of 2023. Financial challenges now account for 55% of all the cases we are dealing with, and they go right to the core of the sustainability of any GMV. Also, in too many cases, those challenges cannot be met locally by making any changes to the operation of the venue – they’ve reduced their bills, maximised their income, cut their staff and are already working as not-for-profit services. What is required is a national solution. The Music Venue Trust is heading towards the end of this year helping about one in five GMVs to keep open on the basis of hope that change will come. Every delay to that change damages that hope – and poses a risk of venue closures. We are in a much better place than we were 12 months ago. But we are also occupying a very high-risk space in which hundreds of venues have delayed their decision to close because of the promise of change. The live music industry and the government must act quickly to deliver on the hope that has been created. You can’t pay bills with hope.

Charts analysis: Gracie Abrams extends lead at singles summit

Just 2.98% ahead of its nearest opponent last week, Gracie Abrams’ first No.1 single, That’s So True, opens that gap to a more comfortable 31.82% as it secures its second week at the apex on consumption of 54,549 units (597 digital downloads and 53,952 sales-equivalent streams). That’s a 33.71% increase in consumption week-on-week, placing it well ahead of the single that preceded it at No.1, and remains its runner-up, Sailor Song by Gigi Perez. Sailor Song nevertheless increases its own consumption 4.45% to 41,382 units – its 14th consecutive week of growth. Female solo artists have now topped the chart for 12 weeks in a row (Sabrina Carpenter’s Taste was No.1 for the first nine, Sailor Song for the 10th), equalling the all-time record for the singles chart, which is 72 years old this week. The previous occasion solo women ruled for 12 weeks was in 2023, when we had six consecutive No.1s by female solo artists (Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, Olivia Rodrigo, Doja Cat, Kenya Grace and Taylor Swift), the sequence ending with the arrival of The Beatles’ Now And Then at the summit a year ago this week. Advancing into the Top 10 on its 17th week in the Top 75 – a longer gestation than any of her previous hits - Wildflower climbs 11-7 (19,946 sales) to become Billie Eilish’s 14th song to land in that portion of the chart. Following his one-off appearance at Hammersmith’s Eventim Apollo last Monday (November 11), Teddy Swims has two songs in the Top 10 simultaneously for the first time, with new peaks for The Door (8-5, 21,066 sales) and Bad Dreams, which advances 15-8 (19,602 sales). To clarify a point I made last week about The Door when it arrived in the Top 10 last week on its 27th consecutive appearance in the Top 75 – no other song has remained in the Top 75 for so many weeks in a row from debut before making the Top 10. Swims’ introductory hit, Lose Control – No.2 in March – also climbs (26-23, 12,318 sales). On its 24th consecutive week in the Top 75, Hot To Go! scales a new peak for Chappell Roan, climbing 5-4 (22,685 sales). Conversely, that’s its lowest consumption for 12 weeks, and a prelude to it moving to ACR next week. Its sales are the lowest for a No.4 for 149 weeks. Roan’s latest hit, Casual, climbs 47-44 (8,737 sales). There is also a new peak for Bed Chem (7-6, 20,109 sales) by Sabrina Carpenter. The rest of the Top 10: Apt (3-3, 32,414 sales) by Rosé & Bruno Mars, Thick Of It (6-9, 19,265 sales) by KSI feat. Trippie Redd and Taste (9-10, 18,834 sales) by Sabrina Carpenter. While her latest hit is No.1, Gracie Abrams secures a new peak for Close To You, which reached No.35 in June and now climbs 41-31 (10,852 sales) but ACR ends the four week run in the Top 10 for I Love You I’m Sorry, which dives from its peak of No.4 to No.20 (14,036 sales). Also losing its Top 10 status: Move (10-11, 17,767 sales) by Adam Port, Stryv, Keinemusik, Orso, & Malachiii. Myles Smith’s second EP in eight months – the seven-song, digital-only A Minute… – earns him his album chart debut and spawns his fourth hit, Nice To Meet You, which is the highest of five new arrivals in the singles chart, debuting at No.12 (16,569 sales). Also new to the Top 75: Last Night’s Mascara (No.57, 7,435 sales) the fifth hit for Hertfordshire singer/songwriter Griff; High Road (No.66, 6,419 sales) and This World’s A Giant (No.73, 5,990 sales), two new songs from country singer Zach Bryan and his fifth and sixth hits, and Push 2 Start (No.74, 5,899 sales), the third hit for South African singer, Tyla. No.29 in March 2023, Labour - the TikTok-fuelled introductory hit for 23-year-old London singer/songwriter Paris Paloma - faded from the chart after a few weeks. Gaining new impetus on the platform since the US elections, the feminist anthem gained a toehold on the chart again last week at No.62 and now soars to a new high, No.22, with consumption growing 99.33% week-on-week to 13,311 units, raising its cume to 305,307 units. After four weeks pottering around between No.55 and No.60, The Days - the introductory hit for singer/songwriter Chrystal, originally from Bolton – surges 55-39 (9,325 sales). Three weeks after debuting at No.75, Oscar Winning Tears is a re-entry for Raye, reaching a new high (No.52, 7,790 sales). I Only Smoke When I Drink (52-48, 8,272 sales) moves into the Top 50 for the first time for Nimino, and there’s a new peak for Indestructible (66-56, 7,539 sales) by Andy C & Becky Hill. All I Want For Christmas Is You (58-38, 9,382 sales) by Mariah Carey and Last Christmas (61-43, 8,999 sales) by Wham! remain the only Christmas songs in the Top 75, although three more re-enter the Top 100, with the floodgates about to open. Overall singles consumption is up 1.63% week-on-week to 29,626,175 units, 7.23% above same week 2023 consumption of 27,628,360 units. Paid-for sales are up 1.84% week-on-week at 259,887, 12.88% below same week 2023 sales of 298,324.

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