New plans to help live music thrive

153/07
17 December 2007

With a pledge for £500,000 to set up new rehearsal spaces, the Government today underlined its commitment to support live music. In its response to the Live Music Forum’s report, it also undertook to explore exemptions from licences for some small venues and to work with the Mayor of London to protect venues.

The Forum’s report, published in July, made recommendations on how the Government could improve the licensing system for live music venues and how it could better promote live music. Recommendations the Government will take forward include:

  • exploring an exemption to help small venues, such as restaurants, cafes and community halls, whose main business isn’t to put on live music;
  • setting up pilot, professionally equipped, community rehearsal spaces for young people, for which £500,000 will be made available over the next two years;
  • working with the Mayor of London to see what can be done to ensure key music venues are not closed down in London and, if they are, to explore how  suitable replacements can be provided; and
  • helping the National Union of Students (NUS) to re-establish a live music network to increase the number of universities putting on live music.

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The Forum found that the Licensing Act had delivered many benefits and had a broadly neutral effect overall on live music but some particularly small venues had been put off staging live performances.

A survey of secondary music venues – those whose main business isn’t to stage live music – published today backs up the Forum’s findings. It shows that 67 per cent of those venues have used the new licensing regime for live music compared to 60 per cent under the old system.

But overall there has been a five percentage point fall in the proportion of those venues actually staging live performances – this drop is largely due to fewer restaurants and community halls putting on events. The research found that the Licensing Act was not a factor in the fall in live music.

Live music is the fastest growing part of UK’s music industry, worth £743 million – up eight per cent from 2006. And more people are going to live music events. Between July and October 2006 28 per cent of adults said they had been to a live concert in the past year compared to 26 per cent in 2005.

Culture Secretary James Purnell said:

“The live music industry is clearly booming but there hasn’t yet been the increase in live music in small venues such as restaurants that we had hoped for. I want to do everything we can to support live music. To help ensure that, we will explore exemptions for some venues. Clearly we’d only be looking at exemptions for events that don’t cause public nuisance or compromise public safety.

“Nurturing young bands and artists and making sure they have a place to play is absolutely essential. That’s why I am today committing half a million pounds to set up a pilot network of affordable, professionally equipped community rehearsal spaces.

“And so fans are able to see their idols live in central London venues, we will work with the Mayor of London to investigate how we can secure the future of live music venues.”
 
The £500,000 will kick start plans to set up about a dozen affordable, professionally-equipped community rehearsal spaces around the country, over the next two years.  These spaces will be created in partnership with local and regional government, music industry and other private sector support.

Feargal Sharkey, the former Live Music Forum chairman, has been asked by James Purnell and Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families Ed Balls, to lead the work in creating these rehearsal spaces by building the necessary partnerships and securing additional funding.  Support has already been secured from the British Phonographic Industry, the Association of Independent Music and Sony-BMG Music Entertainment (UK).

In the longer term, DCMS is committed to leading an expansion of the project so that more communities may benefit. It will be exploring the scope for supporting future rehearsal spaces from other funding streams, such as the Unclaimed Assets Scheme.

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Notes to Editors

  1. The government response to the Live Music Forum’s (LMF) report  and the LMF report published on 4 July 2007 are both available online.

  2. A survey of live music in England and Wales 2007 was conducted by BMRB Social Research on behalf of DCMS. The survey found that under the new licensing regime two thirds of venues (64%) had a premises licence that authorised them to stage live music, with a further three per cent staging live music under another form of authorisation. In comparison, a study of the take up of live music licenses among smaller secondary venues in 2006 found that under the old regime three fifths of venues (60 per cent) were authorised to stage live music, either by having a Public Entertainment Licence (PEL) (45 per cent) or through some other form of authorisation (16 per cent).

  3. The LMF was set up by DCMS in 2004 following a Ministerial commitment made during the passage of the Licensing Act to ‘work with the music industry to ensure that full advantage is taken of the opportunities offered by the Licensing Act 2003 for the promotion of live music’. In tandem, it had a remit to monitor and evaluate the impact of the Licensing Act 2003 on the performance of live music. Chaired by Feargal Sharkey, the LMF comprised representatives from across the industry and non-commercial sectors, together with local government, the Arts Council and the hospitality trade.

  4. The Licensing Act 2003 came into effect on 24 November 2005. It abolished the anachronistic ‘two in a bar rule’, whereby a public entertainment licence was not required where only one or two performers performed during an evening on licensed premises.  This restricted what entertainment was provided, and acted as a disincentive to more diverse forms of music. The Act also introduced a single, integrated premises licence which permits premises to supply alcohol, to provide regulated entertainment and to provide refreshment late at night.

  5. The Government's contribution to funding for this pilot scheme of community rehearsal spaces is CSR local government spend of £500,000 over 2008-9 to 2009-10. The aim is to establish the initial 12 spaces in areas of multiple deprivation – both urban and rural – where they would be most needed and have the greatest beneficial impact.

  6. The initiative will also explore the potential for combining music rehearsal activities with other forms of creative expression, such as community radio, to provide an audience for emerging artists and bands, as well as entry level experience for young people in broadcasting.

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