135 at risk grassroots music venues have been helped by emergency funding as part of the £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund distributed by the Arts Council England.
The £3.36 million Emergency Grassroot Music Venues Fund is being shared among venues across England who applied for support to survive the imminent risk of collapse caused by COVID-19.
Details of all 135 venues awarded a grant through the Culture Recovery Fund can be found HERE (click on the EGMVF Decisions for Website.xlsx file).
In response to the demand for help from some of the hardest hit in the sector, and to ensure the support would be felt far and wide, an additional £1.1 million was also brought forward, increasing the fund from £2.25 million to £3.36 million to help as many venues as quickly as possible.
Indoor performances can now restart with socially distanced audiences so music venues are able to reopen safely, alongside other culture venues and heritage sites.
The accelerated funding has been delivered by Arts Council England in under a month to save grassroots venues previously facing insolvency. The emergency grants of up to £80,000 will cover on-going running costs incurred during closure, including rent and utilities, so that some of the country’s most vulnerable venues can survive.
Recipients of the fund include The Troubadour in London, where Adele and Ed Sheeran performed in the early days of their career, as well as The Jacaranda in Liverpool where The Beatles played their first gig. The fund will support the Sunflower Lounge, one of the oldest music venues in Birmingham, and Night People in Manchester, home to Northern Soul and club nights as well as live performances and DJ sets. Other successful recipients include The Brickyard in Carlisle, which has hosted a range of acts including Foals, Blossoms and Biffy Clyro since it opened in 2002, and The Louisiana in Bristol, where Florence and The Machine was among the acts that performed to small audiences there at the start of their careers.
Music venues are also eligible to apply for a share of £500 million in grants being delivered to cultural organisations by Arts Council England, which is accepting applications for round 2 of the programme until Friday 4 September 2020.
Independent cinemas whose businesses have been unavoidably disrupted will also be able to apply for grants up to £200,000 from the British Film Institute (scroll down the page to the relevant section).
Image: The Barrel House Ballroom in Totnes, Devon received a grant of £5,500 from the Culture Recovery Fund.