Photos by James Arthur Allen. Shot at Cheese and Grain and The Tree House, Frome.
Over the past decade, a crisis has been unfolding in the music industry.
At the top end of the scale, the likes of Taylor Swift and Beyoncé can charge top dollar for their stadium extravaganzas. But at the grassroots level, venues are disappearing at an alarming rate.
The cost of touring – from fuel to accommodation – makes life on the road a challenge for smaller bands, and the costs of running a performance space are a point of pain for venues. Recent statistics make for gloomy reading: in 2023, 125 venues closed for good, making it the worst year on record. Last year, half of those that remained made no profit at all. And in some cases, venues are under threat of closure so the building can be redeveloped into more housing.
Smaller venues play a vital role in the UK economy. It’s where bands learn their craft and build their following. If grassroots venues close in certain towns, it leaves a generation of younger people unable to see live music without travelling to the nearest big city, with all the costs that entails. Which means the economy-boosting stadium-fillers of the future may fall apart before they have a chance to really get started.
“I know that local authorities are always short of housing,” says Brendan Fisher MRICS. “But tearing apart the cultural fabric of your city is not a great idea.”
Fisher is one of 36 experts bringing their specialist knowledge to the Music Venue Trust (MVT). The charity aims to protect and improve grassroots venues throughout the UK. Its work spans everything from founding a voluntary £1 levy on ticket prices for venues with a capacity of more than 5,000 (to channel those funds into smaller venues), to working on the ‘Raise the Standard’ campaign, which focuses on investment in sound and lighting. And the ‘Stay the Night’ initiative helps artists find accommodation while on tour.
Preserving musical heritage
A lifelong music fan who has dabbled in promotion, Fisher grew up near Oxford, where a lot of venues have disappeared. He moved to Bath after university and got involved with the MVT after hearing a feature on Radio 4 about the seemingly successful Moles venue in the city closing. “That was a bit of a call to action,” he says. “We've got really rich musical heritage in the UK, we still punch well above our weight internationally, and the small music venues are an unsung part of that.”
Bands including Coldplay have identified this too, saying: “If we hadn't started out playing at these small venues, there's no way we'd be doing what we do now.” The MVT have called it the “research and development lab” for the UK music industry. “It's really important that we have these places,” says Fisher.
Fisher works day-to-day with Somerset Council, managing an investment portfolio that at its height was worth £280m. As a portfolio manager he spends a lot of time managing the relationship with tenants, which makes him perfectly placed to be the landlord and tenancy guru for MVT.
“A lot of the smaller venues aren't set up with any commercial property expertise on board,” he explains. “A lot of them are not really set up to be music venues, and it's just some entrepreneur that's said, ‘Oh, there is a space we can convert into a music venue. We can make it viable.’ And then you've got certain landlords who see that they’ve made it work and decide to try and double the rent on it.
“I do a lot of lease renewals, rent reviews, advising tenants on going into properties and exiting them, and relationships with the landlords.”
One issue he’s seen regularly involves areas outside of a venue, where people go to smoke or use them, informally, as a beer garden. It can be vital to the venue, but without a lease or licence, a landlord can restrict or prevent its use. It can, says Fisher, leave people on “the brink of ruin”, as in one case he dealt with in Birmingham where the landlord informally agreed that the venue could use a bit of land as outside space. The tenant spent £100,000 on making it fit for purpose but then the landlord terminated the tenancy at will, after the tenant had sunk his life savings into it.
“I'm reactively reviewing issues that crop up on a regular basis. For example, tenants quite regularly don't realise that they've got security of tenure,” he says. “Similarly, venues are often chased on dilapidations where tenants haven't obtained a Schedule of Condition. So, on the way out, the landlord is trying to have them over a barrel. We've had cases where we've been able to prove supersession simply just by showing the landlord the likelihood of redecoration by any incoming tenant. We're now more pro-actively trying to encourage venues to get a Schedule of Condition on the way into a lease.
“We also see derogation from grant cases come up fairly regularly, where the landlord has let a property knowing that it cannot be used or preventing it being used for the purpose the tenant intends.”
“I know that local authorities are always short of housing, but tearing apart the cultural fabric of your city is not a great idea” Brendan Fisher MRICS, Music Venues Trust
Making tenants aware of their rights
One point he is trying to hammer home with tenants is the fact that they have more power than they think. Part of Fisher’s approach is to get them to be more proactive, taking his guidance before they enter a lease, getting a Schedule of Condition and having a solicitor look over the details.
“Quite a lot of [commercial] tenants don't realise that the power they have, because often they're used to being in a residential scenario where there are a large number of alternative prospective tenants and until recently no security of tenure. We frequently need to push them to fight for rent free periods or for the landlord to do basic works,” he says. “If you've got a shabby industrial unit on the outskirts of a small town where there's not a whole host of prospective tenants for it, actually, you've got quite a lot of power.”
Fisher is also trying to stop venue operators from providing personal guarantees: “If you've got any kind of dependants at all, if you've got any personal property, then you don't want to be putting yourself as personal guarantor. I know it sounds terrible to put six months’ rent deposit away because you need the money to set up your venue, but it's a lot better than giving up your house because you're a personal guarantor against a venture that's gone bust.”
“Quite a lot of [commercial] tenants don't realise that the power that they have, because often they're used to being residential tenants” Brendan Fisher MRICS, Music Venues Trust
Hitting the right notes
MVT’s work has seen plenty of progress. They’ve worked hard on The Agent of Change principle, which states that whoever introduces a change must manage its consequences. For example, if a developer builds residential flats next to an established live music venue, the developer must ensure that the new residents are protected from noise, rather than imposing additional restrictions on the existing venue. This will hopefully mean an end to the stories of flats being built next to existing performance venue, which then receives a barrage of noise complaints.
And a lot of the big-name acts are happily signing up to the £1 levy on ticket sales to pour money back into grassroots performances. With the MVT’s support, live music can be saved for future generations. But how can surveyors help?
“Lots of venues won't do a Schedule of Condition before they go into the venue, we need building surveyors to come on board and help change that,” says Fisher. “And if there are specialists that know more about acoustics, if there are specialists that know about developing out residential ancillary parts within commercial premises, then yeah, the MVT would love to hear from other surveyors.”
