Swindon & Wiltshire News
‘Bold new strategy’ to secure Bristol’s indie music venues launched
A ‘bold new strategy’ to secure the future of Bristol’s independent music venues has been launched.
Bristol Nights, a partnership project whose purpose is to promote and protect the city’s night-time economy, has been working for over a year to establish a Bristol Music Fund.
The organisation has been consulting individuals and organisations across Bristol’s music industry to research and understand the challenges faced by venues, promoters, artists and audiences, and establish possible solutions that could help the sector thrive.
On Wednesday (November 6), the report was unveiled at a launch event in the basement of Bristol Beacon. Bristol Nights worked with strategy development specialists PRD to produce A Ticket to the Future, a report which sets out the feasibility of establishing the first Bristol Music Fund and how such an approach can benefit the sector.
Market analysis found that while small music venues – those under 1,000 capacity – put on 78 per cent of the paid events in the city, they only generate 32 per cent of the ticket revenue. This suggests that the lion’s share of revenue is being made – and kept – by the city’s largest venues.
The report’s authors asked concert-goers if they would be happy to pay a one per cent levy on tickets – ten pence on every £10 – to support the city’s smaller venues.
Three-quarters (76 per cent) said they would be happy to pay the extra, with a further 17 per cent saying they would be ‘okay’ with it. Only four per cent said they would be unhappy.
When asked if they would be willing to pay three per cent – 30p on every £10 – respondents were still overwhelmingly happy (66 per cent) or okay (23 per cent) with only nine per cent saying they would be unhappy.
The report suggests that the levy could raise between £400,000 and £1 million every year.
Carly Heath, nighttime economy Advisor at Bristol City Council, said: “Music is a fundamental part of the social and cultural fabric that shapes Bristol’s identity at home and abroad.
“The music industry is big business for us and a vital positive contributor to the city’s prosperity with many millions of pounds generated annually for the local economy. Yet the distribution of this wealth is uneven.
“Small events are the fertile ground from which so much local talent develops. It’s crucial we find a way to support the whole ecosystem, so our music scene can continue to flourish and create joyful moments for music fans in the city.
“Establishing the Bristol Music Fund is an opportunity to invest in the talent found right across our music sector, and redress the balance for those venues, events and music creators who innovate and incubate new sounds.”
Phil Gibby, area director, South West, Arts Council England, said: “Grassroots venues are vital to England’s cultural ecology and there’s no doubt Bristol, a city steeped in musical history, has all the potential to rival the world’s top live music destinations.
“We are proud to have supported Bristol Nights to explore an equitable and inclusive infrastructure for the grassroots scene, that could safeguard the futures of the talented artists and promoters who make Bristol so vibrant.”
The next step, the launch event was told, was to create a new Community Benefit Society, which would be owned by its members, who would get a say in how best to support Bristol Music into the future.
The music fund is seen as vital to the survival of smaller venues.
In 2014 music fans launched a petition opposing the development of new flats which could have threatened the music licence of The Fleece, due to noise pollution concerns. Happily, ten years later, and 42 years since it first opened its doors, The Fleece – which played host Oasis, Radiohead and Ed Sheeran in their early days – is still going.
However, Bristol Bierkeller, which hosted the first UK concert by Nirvana, closed in 2018. And the Blue Mountain was demolished in 2023 after 28 years to make way for student accommodation.
In neighbouring Bath, legendary venue Moles – which played host to The Smiths, Radiohead, Oasis, Eurythmics, Bastille, Mumford & Sons, and Ed Sheeran at the start of their careers – filed for insolvency and closed in December 2023.
The venue, which had just celebrated its 45th anniversary, was one of 120 live music venues to close in that year alone.
Meanwhile, the arena and stadium end of the market had a bumper year with record profits. YTL, which acquired Filton Airfield back in 2015 and is building the Brabazon housing, business and leisure development there, hopes to have a 19,000-capacity arena open by 2026.
Bristol’s largest dedicated concert venues are the newly-refurbished Bristol Beacon (1,800) and the O2 Academy (1,600).
Meanwhile, the 30,000-capacity Ashton Gate Stadium, home of Bristol City football club, has hosted concerts by Elton John, Take That, and Arctic Monkeys.
Image by Gabriel Doti from Pixabay
