Back in April, Andrew Carthy – known to fans as Mr Scruff – completed a run of 15 shows in grassroots venues around the UK. This ‘Miniature Arenas Tour’ was a special one. For every ticket sold, he donated £1 to The Liveline Fund, a joint initiative between Music Venue Trust (MVT) and Save Our Scene (SOS) to bolster the country’s grassroots music industry – becoming the first-ever electronic artist to do so.
“I’m doing this partly because the people who should be, aren’t,” he said in an interview with SOS. “It’s all been a bit DIY, and there’s a healthy dose of, ‘Well if I can do it, you lot up there with your big arena tours definitely can.” His pointed and practical demonstration of support brought a long-discussed industry proposal to life – a £1 ticket levy on major stadium and arena gigs to fund the grassroots. In doing so, he threw down a gauntlet that’s becoming increasingly hard for the music world to ignore.
In March 2024, senior representatives from LIVE, MVT, National Arenas Association and various venues appeared before the government’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee. “It is incredibly easy to do £1 on every ticket at arena and stadium level; we have done it multiple times for different reasons,” said Mark Davyd, the CEO and founder of MVT, during the hearing. He added that such a levy “would probably be the most significant change to our grassroots venues in the seven decades they have been open”. The Committee’s subsequent report recommended a voluntary levy be established “no later than September 2024”, and that if not agreed by then, the government “should introduce a statutory levy at the earliest subsequent opportunity”.
Now, more than a year later, that deadline is well in the rear view mirror and a broad industry consensus on what should be done about it has not been reached. However, data shows that gig-goers are overwhelmingly in favour, with 93% supporting the implementation of a £1 levy. Industry responses like the LIVE Trust, launched in January, have also been lauded as a crucial first step, sparking hope that the needle is finally starting to shift. Funded by £1 per ticket from shows over 5,000 capacity, it garnered over £500,000 in pledges from major tours like Pulp, Diana Ross, and Hans Zimmer in the first four months of 2025.
In a letter shared with The Quietus by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), Minister for Creative Industries Sir Chris Bryant and LIVE CEO Jon Collins formally acknowledged this “tangible progress” and outlined their current position – a “shared goal of widespread adoption of a voluntary industry ticket levy”. As the letter acknowledges, just 8% of eligible shows this year have pledged to implement the levy. So, as well as encouraging artists to opt in, Minister Bryant has called on events giant Live Nation to “step up” and “help in relation to Ticketmaster and […] any of the acts they are representing”, also stating that the government would implement legislation if the situation wasn’t proceeding. So, why hasn’t the government already intervened to introduce a statutory levy?
In France, a 3.5% tax is in place on all concert ticket sales, with revenue going into a central fund managed by the Centre National de la Musique (CNM), the country’s public music agency. This supports live music by covering venue and promoter losses and funding artist development from recordings to rehearsals. Notably, international artists touring the country also contribute to this fund. MVT’s Davyd has highlighted its effectiveness, stating that under this model, “no venues in France have closed”.
This mix of grassroots demand, piecemeal industry action, and governmental backing have culminated into what feels like a pivotal moment for the UK’s grassroots music scene. But, broad industry adoption is far from reaching critical mass, and it remains unclear just how these funds will be distributed. In the meantime, venues across the country continue to fight a losing battle to keep their doors open, with 58% of fans having witnessed an important local music venue or nightclub shut down in their community since 2020.
However, MVT’s official position aligns with the government and LIVE. “We advocate for a voluntary levy precisely because it ensures flexibility, responsiveness, and industry-wide buy-in,” says Sophie Asquith, MVT’s Venue Support Manager. “While statutory levies offer consistency, by moving the mechanism into one that is controlled by the government we could no longer guarantee its efficacy; presently government funding is disproportionately distributed to classical art forms and not contemporary music, but a voluntary levy administered through the LIVE Trust will be ring-fenced for grassroots music venues, artists, and promoters.”
It can’t be understated just how important this funding could be for these spaces. “There are so many issues that keep me awake at night,” says Mal Campbell, who manages bookings and promotions at The Trades Club in Hebden Bridge. “Our margins are so tight that 30 ticket sales are the difference between a show losing money, and making a small surplus.” This knife-edge reality particularly affects their commitment to booking new, emerging artists, a practice Campbell insists is “absolutely vital for the whole music ecosystem.”
It’s a sentiment shared by Fielding Hope, Senior Programmer at Cafe OTO, who describes incoming levy funding as “essential”. “We don’t want to be beholden to any marketplace and only book the bigger experimental acts,” he adds. Having cultivated a community over 17 years with boundary-pushing music from local, international and lesser-known talents, the venue has become deeply embedded in London’s cultural geography. “If we start compromising what we do then there’s very little point in us existing at all.”
Faced with such immediate challenges, and with top-down solutions proving sluggish, many are taking matters into their own hands. Sister Midnight, a not-for-profit co-operative in South East London, epitomises this approach. Led primarily by Lenny Watson, Sophie Farrell, and Lottie Pendlebury, they’ve been campaigning since 2021 to establish Lewisham’s first community-owned music venue in Catford. “I wish the levy had come into play much sooner because there are many things it could have helped us with,” says Watson. “Unfortunately, I think we’re probably too far down the road now for it to significantly impact our opening timeline.”
Their campaign has raised around £450,000 from investors and grants over the last four years, much of which is going towards refurbishing the former working men’s club they’ll soon call home. “If we had been able to get funding early on from something like the cultural levy, it would have been a real game changer for us,” she adds. “We’ve lost a staggering number of venues in the UK over the last few decades, and we need new ones to reopen to help rebuild that infrastructure.”
Music journalist and author of Party Lines Ed Gillet cautions that the £1 levy, however welcome, confronts a crisis with much deeper roots. “The ticket levy is definitely a step in the right direction, but it’s not a solution on its own to the problems facing grassroots venues.” He points to soaring energy prices and the cost of living crisis as seismic challenges for smaller venues, and how systemic support for dealing with them has been patchy. “You only need to look at the uneven distribution of the Culture Recovery Fund during the pandemic, or the recent reduction in business rates relief, to see that the government could be doing more.”
Gillet also argues the solution isn’t solely top-down, insisting that to safeguard the grassroots, we as audiences have to do our part, too. “If we care about small venues, and want them to survive, then we need to be buying tickets and going to gigs. If all we spend our money on is arena shows and festivals, then that’s all we’ll end up with, and the UK’s music ecosystem will suffer.”
James Henderson, Programme Manager at SOUP in Manchester, echoes this. “Young music fans now favour going to larger venues with seemingly infinite cash and stacked line-ups four times a year over supporting a monthly party in a 200-capacity venue.” He says that alongside the redistribution of money that a ticket levy would bring, he’d also like to see the government bring “more protected status” to small venues amid ill-considered urban development in the city. “The overwhelming amount of new-build luxury flats in [Manchester] is putting venues at risk because of their new proximity to residential dwellings and, simultaneously, pricing creative minds out of the area.”
Let’s be clear, the £1 levy is a necessary and broadly popular initiative. It’s gaining significant momentum in large part thanks to artists and performers, who continue to champion the bricks and mortar that formed the foundations of their careers. Schemes like the LIVE Trust are a brilliant start, a crucial first step. Yet, for this initiative to deliver real change for grassroots music, it demands universal buy-in, particularly from events and ticketing giants, to transform the initiative into a national standard. A potential levy should be considered a vital part of the UK’s live music ecosystem, rather than a philanthropic policy that’s opted out of by default.
And while strides are certainly being made in this direction, the levy is a catalyst, not a silver bullet. The broader battle involves fostering more community-owned venues, robustly defending them against licensing threats from noise complaints and property development and, ultimately, equipping them with the resources not just to survive the year, but to plan for the next ten.
“It would be a profound mind-set shift if music venues felt safe enough to take risks,” says Sister Midnight’s Lenny Watson, who’s resolute in her determination to bring a community venue to the heart of Lewisham. “I’m excited to see what change that could bring to the industry. Fingers crossed, this levy can be the start of that shift.”
