Sound Diplomacy is bringing the Music Cities Convention back to the UK next week for the first time in a decade.
Here, founder and chairman Shain Shapiro says the industry needs to look beyond London in order to develop both artists and audiences…
The UK music industry contributed £8 billion to the economy in 2025. That's a record and it should be celebrated.
Olivia Dean and Lola Young are proof that the UK can still produce world-class artists capable of competing on a global stage. But both are from London. And increasingly, so are the majority of artists that are breaking through.
That's not a talent problem; it's an infrastructure one. And if we don't address it honestly, the headline number will mask a quiet, slow decline happening everywhere outside the capital.
Next week, Sound Diplomacy is bringing the Music Cities Convention back to the UK for the first time in a decade. We're doing it in Hull, not London. That choice is intentional. If the UK music industry is genuinely serious about its future, it has to look both at and beyond the capital – and focus more on the cities and towns where talent is formed, tested, and, if the conditions are right, sustained. That’s nationwide, and the opportunity to leverage such talent across a variety of core objectives is significant.
I know there are encouraging signs. The Mercury Prize moving to Newcastle and the BRIT Awards to Manchester are worth noting. But large-scale events don't singlehandedly build ecosystems.
The organisations doing the real work – Punch Records, Come Play With Me, Generator, Brighter Sound, MusicLeeds – are doing it quietly, consistently, and often with less support than they deserve.
EMI North is a meaningful signal from a major label. The Music Venue Trust has done vital work too. But these are individual efforts replacing a system, not a system supporting individual efforts.
I've come to understand that the biggest decisions that shape whether a music ecosystem thrives or fails are rarely made by the music industry. These are city decisions
Shain Shapiro
I've come to understand that the biggest decisions that shape whether a music ecosystem thrives or fails are rarely made by the music industry. These are city decisions. Planning departments, licensing authorities, transport agencies, education budgets – not A&R teams or streaming algorithms —–which often are the real arbiters of whether music can build sustainable roots in a place and then sprout seeds and shoots out of it.
Much has improved since the Grassroots Music Venues Rescue Plan was published in 2015, but we remain in a country that prefers to plug holes rather than replace pipes, and it shows everywhere. Agent of Change was removed from the law and left as guidance. Licensing restrictions continue to challenge venue bottom lines. We do not invest in music education as we should. These aren't peripheral policy details; they are the operating conditions that determine everything that thrives and what doesn’t. And if cities don't work for those who want to pursue music in one way or another, the industry cannot scale.
This is why the Music Cities Convention exists – and why it matters that it's happening in Hull, not in London or a big city.
In the UK, we've worked with Cardiff, Belfast, Coventry, Manchester, and yes, London, to incorporate music into civic plans, codes and policies. Hull has done the same on its own, building its own music plan, setting up an active music board and pursuing UNESCO City of Music status – almost a decade on from its year as UK City of Culture in 2017. That's precisely why it's the right host for this Convention. This city is a case study worth following.
The fundamental questions facing the UK music industry right now are not solely about streaming market share or ticket costs. That is important, but they're more local than that: Where can artists afford to develop careers? Where can audiences grow? Where does the infrastructure exist to support long-term growth?
For the UK, the challenge is coordination. DCMS’s launch of a new music strategy is welcome, as is the announcement of the Northern Music Export Office. We are much better off now, in some respects, than we were when we held the first Music Cities Convention in Brighton in 2015. Still, it’s often one step forward, one step back.
The good news is that more cities and places want to engage than ever before. The bad news is that we’re doing it without a consistent national framework – one that brings local governments, cultural leaders, and the industry into genuine alignment.
I hope this event, and the conversations it engenders, go a long way to furthering that framework, because every artist in this country deserves to live in a place that takes music as seriously as they do.
Shain Shapiro is the founder and chairman of Sound Diplomacy and author of This Must Be The Place: How Music Can Make Your City Better.
