Ticketmaster to launch upsell option for MVT

Ticketmaster is launching a charity upsell option for the UK’s Music Venue Trust (MVT) to coincide with its sponsorship of this month’s Venues Day.

The upsell, which will launch on Venues Day (17 October) and run for an entire month, means that anyone purchasing a ticket on Ticketmaster will be given the option to make a donation directly to MVT.

The initiative will run annually, with Ticketmaster pledging to match all donations received.

“This upsell provides a practical method for fans to support grassroots music venues, and we are incredibly grateful to the Ticketmaster team for putting it in place,” MVT CEO Mark Davyd tells IQ. “Ticketmaster matching all fan donations is a powerful message for the whole industry about the support our sector needs and the will of the music community to provide it.”

The move follows Ticketmaster’s booking fee rebate launched in 2021, where venues receive a 50% rebate on all booking fees. The ticketing company has been headline sponsor of Venues Day since 2016.

“Ticketmaster has been a long-term and committed partner of MVT, and their core support has been vital in developing us as the authentic voice of grassroots venues, artists and fans,” says Davyd.

The music charity’s annual Venues Day event will take place at The Fireworks Factory in London next Tuesday 17 October. Hundreds of delegates from across the UK’s grassroots music venue (GMV) sector, representing venues throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, have already booked their places at the event.

“We need a radical intervention by everyone: the government, the music industry, artists and fans, to stop these closures”

This year’s theme, ‘Behind the Scenes’, covers workshops, discussions, presentations and networking to offer practical support to the people running venues and connect them with services that can help them.

“This year’s Venues Day is bigger than ever, with more venues attending, more delegates, more partners, and more on offer,” says Davyd. “Our goal is to match the size of the event with the size of ambitions for what is delivered on the day, and what we can bring to the sector.”

Last week saw the UK organisation announce the first acquisition under its Own Our Venues scheme. The Snug (cap. 100) in Atherton, Greater Manchester, became the first GMV to be bought by Music Venue Properties (MVP), the independent Charitable Community Benefit Society (CCBS) created by the MVT.

Own Our Venues was launched as a crowdfunded project in June 2022 as the first step in a long-term campaign to take control of the freeholds of music venue premises and bring them under a protected status of benevolent ownership.

“We believe that live music fans understand exactly how vital these venues are to the future of our whole music ecosystem and how much financial difficulty they are currently facing,” adds Davyd.

“127 grassroots music venues have closed in the last 12 months – more than one is permanently closing every week. We need a radical intervention by everyone: the government, the music industry, artists and fans, to stop these closures and turn this around.”

Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.