The British theatre industry reportedly employs around 290,000 people (as of 2018), making it one of a significant employer within the UK live sector as a whole. With the continuing disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic, theatre has undoubtedly taken a substantial financial hit as a result of the virus. LMX research intern, Brooke Harwood, writes here about the efforts made to save a beleaguered theatre industry and the theatre companies’ determination to provide beloved festive shows in 2020.
In this post, Professor Paul Carr of the University of South Wales outlines a recent report presented to the Welsh Government’s Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee on the impact of Covid-19 on the Welsh music industries. Here, he summarises key findings and recommendations, and reflects on the process of conducting the research.
In this post, we’re introducing a special issue of the Journal of The International Association for the Study of Popular Music co-edited by the Live Music Exchange’s Martin Cloonan and Adam Behr, with Beate Flath. Festivals, along with live music in general, are increasingly a part of the broader political process and, relatedly, the cultural policy process. This timely issue approaches the politics of popular music festivals from a range of theoretical and geographical perspectives.
The Popular Music scholar and writer, Dave Laing died suddenly on 6th January 2019. Amongst many other things, Dave was a very good friend to Live Music Exchange, someone to whom we often turned to for advice and help. Both were always freely given in a wonderfully supportive way. In this post, we offer an LMX tribute to Dave.