The letter calls for £40 million in government spending to help protect the UK’s music venues.
The Music Venue Trust has shared an open letter to Boris Johnson, demanding changes to the British government’s approach to the coronavirus outbreak. Writing on behalf of the 661 members of the Music Venues Alliance, Mark Davyd, CEO on Music Venues Trust called on the Prime Minister to “act immediately to legally enforce the temporary closure of grassroots music venues” in order to prevent “permanent closure and loss of hundreds of these vital and vibrant parts of our communities.”
The letter calls for a total of £40 million to be allocated to independent music venues in order to safeguard them for a period of eight weeks during the coronavirus-related shutdown. The letter breaks this figure down into “£11.4million now to protect the supply chain, people’s jobs, homes, businesses, and £3.7 million per week to maintain them while they are closed.”
Davyd goes on to call for the Festival of Great Britain to be cancelled. The event is currently scheduled to take place in 2022 and has been allocated £120 million by the government, money which the Music Venue Trust is calling to be reallocated to the protection of existing venues in the UK. Davyd proposes the remaining £80 million be spent on the creation of a “Cultural Sector Hardship Relief Fund” which would “take action on grassroots theatres, arts centres, community pubs, any space that is a vital hub of culture and social interaction in our communities.”
Read the letter in full here.