MVT announces Fightback fundraiser

Music Venue Trust (MVT) has announced a one-off concert to raise money for a new emergency fund for small venues facing closure.

Taking place at the Roundhouse in London on Tuesday 18 October, Fightback has, says MVT’s Mark Davyd, “no artists booked and no infrastructure confirmed, because this is urgent. What’s happening to our music venues is an emergency which should concern every music fan, every musician and everybody working in the music industry in the UK.

“As of 9am this morning we genuinely don’t know who is playing. It might be me with a ukulele and a bass drum tied to my back, or it might be the biggest artist in the world. We’re asking music fans from across London to please join us for just one night to say loudly and clearly that we’ve all had enough of music venue closures and we aren’t going to put up with it any more.”

Davyd tells IQ the decision to launch the initiative so soon after the closure of Fabric is “timely, as there’s a lot of attention” on the club, but that a “lack of the best legal advice and expert opinion” is an ongoing issue that’s the “key factor closing music venues across the UK”.

“A lack of the best legal advice and expert opinion accounts for more than 50% of all the issues that come across our desk”

“To be exact, it accounts for more than 50% of all the issues that come across our desk,” he explains. “The venues don’t have the money or the information to get good advice, so they either do nothing – which is terrible – or they do the wrong thing – which is even worse – and then we find out about it and, by then, it’s already a massive problem.

“We changed the National Planning Framework to protect music venues in January 2015. The number of times this has been referenced by local lawyers or anybody else objecting to a planning application is almost exactly zero. So we need to put in place a national team who know this issue inside out and make it available to everyone.”

Tickets for Fightback will be available from Monday from the Roundhouse website, with early-bird tickets priced at £10. The price will increase as artists are confirmed.

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