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Let The Music Play - Support Your Local Venues and Musicians!

Now I'm not normally one to rant. Actually, scratch that. I'm totally one to rant. It’s just not usually immortalised in print. This week, however, I read something that made me alternate between head-scratching incredulity and outright indignation.

Apparently, someone who likes surveys asked a lot of people to rank professions in order of usefulness during these “unprecedented times”. Unsurprisingly, frontline medics and other key workers topped the list, and rightly so. At the other end (the “not really very useful at all”, or “chocolate teapot” end?) artists, actors and musicians.

This struck me as rather unfair.

“Well, that’s rather unfair”, I said. I may have said some other words as well, but those I definitely do not want immortalised in print.

Having personally worked in two of these professions, I suppose accusations could be levelled that I would say that, wouldn’t I? Fair point, well made.

However, I challenge anyone to tell me that during lockdown they have listened to no music, watched no television, binged on zero boxsets and spent no hours chilling with Netflix - oh wait, that last one means something else, doesn’t it?

 

And who could blame us? Faced with the grim reality of a world radically changed, seemingly overnight, into a dark and dangerous place, we needed the escape and distraction provided by actors, musicians and other creative artists.

Performers came together virtually, helping raise funds for an increasingly pressurised NHS. Musicians and actors live streamed concerts and performances from their living rooms. Artists captured frontline workers as they carried out their everyday heroics, documenting a time in history for future generations, and honouring those who kept going as the world pressed pause. Theatre wardrobe departments made masks and gowns and Gareth Malone, in the shape of his Great British Home Chorus, encouraged the nation to sing during the darkest of days, providing much needed structure when those days threatened to merge into one. Harassed home-schooling parents, socially isolated shielders, choirless choir singers - everyone looked forward to that daily half hour of making music together.

I, for one, don’t even want to imagine where my mental health would be without the solace of music and drama, now more than ever.

Possibly not so useless after all then.

 

However, the post-COVID landscape looks increasingly bleak for the arts. Among the first institutions to close and likely the last to return, theatres and live music venues are facing something close to annihilation. Many have already laid off staff - and here we’re not just talking actors and musicians, but technicians, stage crew, wardrobe, sound engineers, designers, directors, front of house, box office and bar staff, suppliers….the list is surprisingly endless. Some have already accepted they will never reopen,

The music industry alone, which contributes £5.2 billion to the economy, is estimated to lose at least £900 million. 30-50% of the industry’s workforce are likely to lose their jobs, and a staggering 90% of grassroots music venues face closure.

It’s almost too easy to dismiss performers as whingeing luvvies and out of touch rockstars, but those who achieve megastar status are merely the glittering tip of a massive iceberg. The vast majority of those working in the industry struggle to make a living at the best of times. While it’s heartening to see a host of famous names speaking out to support the venues where they honed their craft, everyone has a part to play in ensuring that , as we begin hopefully to emerge from the pandemic, live performance is not consigned to history.

 

Dynamic Meladies is happy to support UK Music’s “Let the Music Play” campaign, an initiative calling for financial support from the government for the commercial music sector, VAT exemption on ticket sales, and a conditional timeline for the safe reopening of venues.

Please support your local venues and musicians, and keep an eye out online for #LetTheMusicPlay for more information on how we can all help keep the music we love playing,

As I finish writing this, news arrives of a package of financial aid from both the UK and Scottish governments for arts, culture and heritage sites. There is currently no detail on how these grants and loans will be distributed, and clearly there will be winners and losers. It’s a start…….

Rant over. Battle just beginning.

Karen Coleman