Interview with Guto Brychan, Chief Executive, Clwb Ifor Bach, Cardiff

Cardiff’s Clwb Ifor Bach is one of longest-running small live music venues in the city. In this blog post the Chief Executive Guto Brychan talks about the history of the venue, its position within Cardiff’s live music ecology, the Save Womanby Street campaign, the ‘Agent of Change’ principle, skills development and funding within the sector, and the importance of developing …  

Agent of Change progresses to second reading in Parliament – Music Venue Trust

Three years after Frank Turner launched the Music Venue Trust campaign to make Agent of Change a part of UK Law to protect grassroots music venues, music fans, artists, organisations and politicians united behind John Spellar MP’s Ten Minute Rule Bill, which was read in Parliament on Wednesday 10 January and no objections were raised. A huge list of sponsors …  

Ten things learned at Venues Day 2017 – Emma Webster and Adam Behr

2017 saw the fourth instalment of the (hopefully) now annual Venues Day, which gathered over 300 venues from across the UK in one room. The day was kicked off by an impassioned introductory speech by BBC Radio 1’s Steve Lamacq in which told the assembled venues and promoters that ‘We must never stop telling people how important you are’ and …  

What Makes a Music City? – Robert Kronenburg

Robert Kronenburg explores the idea of a ‘Music City’, a term starting to be used more widely to describe initiatives being developed by some cities that recognise popular music as a key part of their heritage and identity and as a possible vehicle for regeneration and cultural tourism.  

Ten Things Learned at Venues Day 2015 – Emma Webster

Emma Webster’s blog post listing ten things learned at Venues Day 2015, from the need to make some noise about the issues facing small venues, to whether audiences are getting older, to suggestions of adopting the French model of a ticket levy to raise revenue for venues.