CWRW among recipients of Music Venue Trust’s Pipeline Investment Fund

A music venue in Carmarthen has received a grant from the charity Music Venue Trust (MVT), as part of a fourth round of recipients for its major new funding initiative, which provides grants of up to £5,000 for UK Grassroots Music Venues. CWRW received £4157.77 from MVT’s Pipeline Investment Fund to pay for soundproofing, and new production and backline equipment.

Venue founder Michael Hilton from CWRW said: “The grant will allow us to purchase new high-quality equipment to give our space the right tools to enhance our venue for grassroot artists and creatives to showcase their talents to the best of their ability. Sound quality and dampening is key to live performance, rehearsal and recording in order for artists to reach their full potential of creativity. Acoustic upgrades will improve the venues artist and customer experiences, and new ICT will allow wider engagement in community participation of the creative sector via online streaming and recording; Making grassroots music more accessible to a wider audience.”

The Pipeline Investment Fund, established in 2022, is primarily funded by ticket sales of MVT’s recent ‘Revive Live’ programme of gigs around the UK, a hugely successful partnership with The National Lottery. To date £165,000 worth of grants have been awarded to 38 Grassroots Music Venues since December. This fourth round of payments sees a total sum of £97,516.97 awarded to a further 23 GMVs across the country.

Small scale grant applications (up to £5,000) were invited from UK based Grassroots Music Venues to support two key areas of work:

● Small scale capital projects; including lights, sound, access, ventilation and minor building alterations

● Staff Training; workforce diversification, succession planning, skills development and strengthening local community ties.

The full list of new recipient venues are:

Venue

City/Town

Reason for grant

The Underground

Bradford

Mixture of mixing desk, backline and production equipment

The Rose Hill

Brighton

Staff training

The Six Six Bar

Cambridge

Sound proofing

Fuel Rock Club

Cardiff

Air conditioning

CWRW

Carmarthen

Soundproofing, new production and backline equipment

The Lighthouse

Deal, Kent

Variety of sound equipment including a new sound desk

Docks Academy

Grimsby

Variety of production equipment

The Holroyd

Guildford

Backline, lighting, DJ Mixer and new mics to improve production in venue

The Old Abbey Taphouse

Hulme, Manchester

Urgent repairs and improvement

The Smokehouse

Ipswich

New sound desk

2 Funky Music Cafe

Leicester

Purchase of a new sound desk to replace a 7 year old analogue desk

Melodic Bar

Liverpool

Staging, training and seating

Loki

London (Brixton)

Purchase of speakers as part of a larger project to buy a new sound system for venue

The Dublin Castle

London (Camden)

Venue maintenance

Rebellion

Manchester

New lighting for production and training for staff

The Middlesbrough Empire

Middlesbrough

Lighting & production equipment

The Lubber Fiend

Newcastle Upon Tyne

Improve stage equipment

Little Buildings

Newcastle Upon Tyne

New sound desk to enable recording of live shows

Escape Venue

Northampton

Safe flooring

Rocknrollas

Paisley

To build an accessible ramp into the premises to increase accessibility

Chinnerys

Southend on Sea

Various production improvements

Ku Stockton

Stockton

Purchase of new monitors to replace 20 year old system

The Crescent Community Venue

York

New seating

Mark Davyd, CEO of Music Venue Trust said: “This fourth round of the Pipeline Investment Fund once again demonstrates how much difference small amounts of money, wisely invested, can make for Grassroots Music Venues. With grassroots music venues facing extraordinary challenges right now, Music Venue Trust is determined to keep pressing the music industry and government to support this fund and ensure music communities right across the country can continue to access the very best in live music.”

The fund prioritises support for organisations who may have been excluded from other available funding and was open to all venue operators and organisations that meet any of the three definitions of a Grassroots Music Space, which can be found here.

Music Venue Trust is still actively seeking further donations, particularly from the wider music industry, to maintain and expand the Pipeline Investment Fund and make it a permanent source of support for Grassroots Music Venues. Please contact ozlem@musicvenuetrust.com for details of how this work can be supported.

In January, Music Venue Trust released their 2022 Annual Report, which was launched at a reception for MPs at The House of Commons. The report details the immense contribution of Grassroots Music Venues to the UK economy, and the current threat they face as a result of the cost-of-living crisis and ongoing post-covid recovery.

MVT is calling on the government to review the VAT on ticket sales that is currently limiting profitability and crushing a sector responsible for nurturing new, upcoming talent in the UK – talent that goes on to define British culture and create huge profit for the industry.

The report also outlines plans to ensure all new arenas opening in the UK contribute to the wider music eco-system by investing a percentage of every ticket sale into Grassroots Venues. As, without the work of GMVs to nurture new talent, there will be no big artists to fill these venues in the coming years. Taking matters into their own hands, last month Enter Shikari announced that £1 from every ticket sold for their first ever arena tour would go to MVT to support the Pipeline Investment Fund.