U.K. MUSIC VENUES HANDED £41M

More than 250 grassroots music venues in the U.K. have been awarded upwards of £41m ($53.2m) from the government’s Cultural Recovery Fund. The Music Venue Trust says 89% of Music Venues Alliance members who applied for funding received cash.

According to MVT, 291 grassroots music venues applied to the fund with 251 successful outcomes (89%) and 33 unsuccessful applications (11%). The total awarded to MVA members was 12.4% of the overall distribution of £334m across two rounds of funding.

In total, 1,974 organizations received funding and 13.1% of successful applications from all disciplines across the entire fund were made by MVA grassroots music venue members.

“The Music Venue Trust warmly welcomes this very effective intervention by The Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Arts Council England into the grassroots music venue sector,” Music Venue Trust CEO Mark Davyd said. “As a result of this fund, the challenges facing the sector have been substantially reduced.

"Music Venue Trust will now shift its focus and will be announcing plans very shortly to tackle the remaining challenges facing sole traders, smaller venues that did not qualify for support and the venues who were unsuccessful or were under-funded.”