The need to support grassroots venues – and the artists that launch their careers there – was a message that came across loud and clear at the BRIT Awards this month. The issue was addressed by Myles Smith, The Last Dinner Party and Ezra Collective.
Here, the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) board writes for Music Week about the organisation’s role in distributing money raised from an arena & stadium levy and supporting artists amid the “cost of touring” crisis…
If we didn’t know it already, the message from winners at this year’s BRIT Awards was stark and clear: the unsustainability of grassroots live touring is undermining the success of British music.
It was a point made eloquently from the stage by Myles Smith, Georgia Davies of The Last Dinner Party and Ezra Collective’s Femi Koleoso.
It’s also why, in January, the FAC announced the launch of a new fund to help tackle the “cost of touring crisis” that is so heavily impacting on artists who perform in grassroots music venues.
Called the UK Artist Touring Fund (or UKAT Fund), it was created principally to distribute any artist-allocated revenues collected from a small per-ticket levy at arena and stadium shows.
With the backing of the government and influential MPs on the Culture Media & Sport Select Committee, there is hope that the widespread adoption of this levy – collected by a new independent, industry-supported charity called the LIVE Trust – will see much-needed funding flow from the booming top-end of live music, through to those performing and hosting smaller shows.
At the time of writing, a small handful of artists have already committed to implementing a £1 levy on ticket sales for their UK tours. Initially, these were all US-based acts – Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bowling For Soup and Diana Ross – and it’s now fantastic to see an iconic British band like Pulp come onboard for their upcoming run of performances this June.
You can feel momentum building. What’s started as a trickle will, hopefully, in time, become a torrent.
If the levy is applied on a blanket basis, as we believe it has to be – at all music shows at arenas and stadiums over a 5,000 capacity – then that provides real potential to unlock a significant and continuous flow of revenue to music’s grassroots.
If that happens, the industry has a duty to ensure this generosity is used efficiently and wisely.
With the UKAT Fund, we have ambitions to help the widest possible cross section of artists.
To achieve that we’ve made it clear that the fund’s purpose is not to underwrite the total cost of tours, or to prop up financially unviable activity. Our goal is to build a robust and transparent mechanism where artists, performers and DJs can apply for “top-up grants” to ensure pre-planned tour dates can go ahead.
Importantly, the FAC are working with our friends from the Musicians’ Union and the Music Managers Forum in the creation of the fund, so that session musicians and managers can also benefit fairly and appropriately.
For this process to work effectively and for the levy to make its maximum impact, the FAC believes that four things need to happen.
First, as highlighted above, the levy needs to be applied on a blanket basis. If it can’t be agreed voluntarily, then we’ll need the government to step in quickly and make it mandatory.
Second, the levy itself should be clearly advertised to ticket buyers, and it should flow in its entirety – without deductions – directly to the LIVE Trust. We need to be upfront with fans and audiences, highlighting this is an across-the-board contribution from everyone involved in staging an arena or stadium show, allowing them to play a collective part in supporting grassroots live music.
Third, it is vital that the LIVE Trust continues to remain independent, transparent and focussed.
The Trust already has a brilliant set of founding trustees in place, and we need them to be laser-focussed in their remit, ensuring that any funds collected can be passed directly to accountable bodies (like the UKAT Fund) where they will be distributed transparently to artists, promoters and venues in need.
Finally, we believe the proportion of funding to support artists should be at least equal to that earmarked for venues.
This is important.
As artists ourselves, the board of the FAC recognises the critical role played by grassroots venues
FAC board
As artists ourselves, the board of the FAC recognises the critical role played by grassroots venues. This is where most of us honed our talents, and where many of us continue to perform. We need these spaces and stages to kickstart the scenes and events of tomorrow. It’s a symbiotic relationship.
We also acknowledge the state of the wider economy and the perilous outlook for bricks-and-mortar businesses. The British Beer & Pub Association reports that nearly 300 pubs closed across England and Wales in 2024. Accountancy firm Price Bailey have estimated that 1 in 10 British restaurants are at imminent risk of closure, while the Night Time Industries Association recently revealed that the UK has lost 37% of nightclubs over the past four years.
Grassroots music venues are equally vulnerable to this chilling complex of dynamics.
However, within this discussion, we feel there is a real danger of undervaluing the role and contribution of artists. As well as attracting a crowd with their music, it is artists who shoulder the bulk of touring costs, who provide the bulk of employment and trigger economic activity.
If artists don’t perform, the wheels of live music stop turning. They propel the entire system.
However, as the FAC made clear in Parliament last year, the unavoidable costs of touring are now stretched to breaking point. A significant percentage of British artists simply cannot afford to hit the road, as was illustrated in a recent survey of independent artists by Ditto Music.
Performing grassroots shows represents a key stage in talent development. It’s often vital for building a fanbase. But the present system risks digging artists into ever-deeper debt, forcing them to cut corners, and adversely impacting other areas of their career.
The UKAT Fund gives us the potential to break this cycle. By providing artists the confidence to tour, we can help ensure grassroots venues are booked, that promoters continue to take risks, that culture can flourish, and new audiences can emerge.
It’s a scenario that benefits everyone.
What we cannot afford to do is repeat the mistakes of the pandemic, when performers and musicians were cut adrift from the Culture Recovery Fund and other support mechanisms.
That way lies creative inertia.
The LIVE Trust and a grassroots ticket levy have the potential to raise all boats. But putting artists at the heart of the process is critical. Only with performers on the road and playing shows will we achieve a more viable and sustainable grassroots music ecosystem.
PHOTO: BRITS/John Marshall – JM Enternational
