20th October is Venues Day 2015
Music Venue Trust are delighted to announce that Ministry of Sound are the first confirmed official partner for Venues Day 2015 and will host this year's event which will take place on Tuesday 20th October.
Venues Day 2015 is designed especially for the needs of small and medium scale music venues from across the UK, with a range of partners from government, the cultural and music industries joining hundreds of music venue owners and managers to explore how to support the future of the UK's vital grassroots music circuit.
As Live Events Department for The Zine (Rocklands/Caffy) I am ecstatic that they came into being at the start of 2014. We scout and report in the small to medium venues. They are the breeding and feeding ground of economic futures and imaginative ambitions. Our own story included, much of which happens in South East London which is a fine circuit for credible hard working artists to swell a fan base and connections on. I think it's ace that, yet again, Venues Day takes place in the SE postcodes as that i where uniqulture is from. And at SUCH a magnificent venue, too.
The team at Ministry of Sound pledged their support for other independent music venues following their own experience of the current challenging climate for running a venue in a town/city centre location: "Ministry of Sound is delighted to be a partner in Venues Day 2015. Regeneration shouldn’t be a threat to our industry. We spent four years and well over a million pounds on one case fighting for our existence. A smaller business would not have survived. This kind of dispute takes many of us away from our core passion of finding and developing creative talent. We want to share our knowledge and experience and be at the centre of any efforts to stop it happening in the future."
Special places to perform, hang out and make new futures are essential to the community and I have experience of spaces that have not survived, for some reason or other, and are sorely missed. Yes, new venues do keep opening but the cultural heritage to a town or city, of the circuit where stars are born, can not be over stated. Thankfully The Royal Albert (a few miles down the Old Kent Road from Ministry Of Sound in Deptford) is not a betting shop or multi-national coffee shop these days but as The Paradise Bar, a decade ago it made a mark on the here and now from fifteen minutes of "New Cross Scene" fame. It was more like twelve minutes and then things really got amazing. Fast forward to last year and the locality is drenched in modern music world connections and activity.
The inaugural Venues Day took place in London in December 2014 and provided the first ever networking opportunity specifically for people who run and programme small to medium scale music venues. I actually wanted to be there with Katy from New Cross Inn, representing Amersham Arms and Number3London, but was at the latter venue where John Robb (Gold Blade/Louder Than War) was finishing off an interview, to jump on a train and get to Venues Day in time to give a talk. As we had to clear away, I couldn't make it but I heard nothing but good things - keep an eye and ear on Music Venue Trust - and this year, 20th October is in my diary to be at Ministry Of Sound!
In 2014, Over 120 venues from England, Scotland and Wales were represented amongst the 340 delegates from the music industry and cultural sector, providing a unique environment to discuss the positive and negative factors affecting grassroots music venues in the 21st century. These venues fulfil a vital role in the ecology of the UK's music industry and make a major contribution to training people that go on to work across the creative industries, as well as being cultural and social hubs within their local community. As the work of Music Venue Trust has grown and gained recognition for the sector, Venues Day 2015 will be an important event for announcing advances and identifying work still needed.
Image: MVT's Mark Davyd with musician, Mark Morriss at Music Venues Day, (c) Pat Pope/Music Venue Trust. Get involved: http://musicvenuetrust.com
Music Venue Trust, founded in 2014, is a registered charity that seeks to preserve, secure and improve the UK’s network of small to medium scale, mostly independently run, music venues. We have a long term plan to protect that live music network which includes, where necessary, taking into charitable ownership freehold properties so they can be removed from commercial pressures and leased back to passionate music professionals to continue their operation.
Caffy St Luce