We are the music makers

Topic

Uk

  • More than 40 UK festivals have fallen in 2026: the independent-festival squeeze

    The Association of Independent Festivals' tracker lists 41 UK festivals cancelled, postponed, paused or closed in 2026, against 43 in all of 2025. Big events sold out fast this summer while the losses fell mostly on smaller festivals, the tier where emerging artists get their festival slots. AIF's main ask, extending a VAT cut on family tickets, would do little for most of them.

    Industryvia Association of Independent Festivals

  • Buying the venues: Music Venue Properties secures its tenth grassroots room, Brighton's Pipeline

    Music Venue Properties, the charitable community benefit society set up by Music Venue Trust, has bought The Pipeline in Brighton, the tenth grassroots venue secured through its Own Our Venues campaign. The model swaps a commercial landlord for a charitable one. That removes the property risk behind more than a third of venue closures, but it does nothing for the thin margins behind most of the rest.

    Industryvia Music Venue Trust

  • UK grassroots venues by the numbers: 30 closed, 801 still open, and what the £1 arena levy has paid so far

    Music Venue Trust's 2025 annual report counts 801 UK grassroots venues trading, down from 810, the smallest fall since 2018, but more than half made no profit and jobs fell by almost a fifth. The voluntary £1 levy on shows over 5,000 capacity covered 8.8% of arena and stadium tickets in 2025, and its first payouts (£500,000 on 28 January 2026, £1m more in July) are small against a £76.6m live-music loss.

    Industryvia Music Venue Trust

Subscribe to We are the music makers

One email a week: the music-tech and AI-in-music news that mattered, and what we think about it.

Sign-ups open soon.