Music Venue Trust, the UK organisation advocating for grassroots music venues, has criticised today’s (October 30) Autumn Budget announced by the Labour-led UK government, saying certain tax rises will place more than 350 venues into immediate risk of closure.
The organisation said it had extensively briefed the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, as well as the Department for Business and Trade, on the negative social, economic and cultural impact of the removal of the 75 percent business rate relief for grassroots music venues, but the government had gone ahead anyway and reduced business rate relief to 40 percent from April 1, 2025.
In a statement, Music Venue Trust said: “The immediate impact is to create a demand for £7 million in additional premises taxes from a sector that, in 2023, returned an entire gross profit across all 830 such venues in the UK of just £2.9 million. 43 percent of grassroots music venues in the UK made a loss in 2023.”
The statement went on to claim that the rise will now put over 350 grassroots music venues at risk of immediate closure, leading to the loss of more than 12,000 jobs and over £250m of economic activity. It’s believed that over 75,000 live music events would also be lost should all of these venues be forced to close.
Music Venue Trust positively acknowledged the government’s statement that inequities in the business rate system were unfairly hitting the hospitality sector and that a new lower rate of taxes would be introduced in April 2026 as a result. However, it said this will likely come too late for many venues.
The organisation is calling upon the government to think again on its policy and restore the 75 percent rate relief for grassroots music venues, or to create an emergency fund of a maximum of £7m that venues at risk of imminent closure can draw from where needed. The only alternative for venues to stay open otherwise, it said, would be to introduce a temporary business rate levy of 50 pence on every ticket sold for an event.
“Music Venue Trust believes that ticket prices should be kept accessible and is reluctant to encourage venues to adopt option 3,” the organisation added. “Unless the government is willing to think again, it unfortunately may be the only possible option to stop a complete collapse of live music in our communities.”
