Over a third of UK grassroots music venues are loss-making, charity finds

There number of grassroots music venues in the UK dropped by 125 last year. Photograph: Martha Fitzpatrick/Redferns

Over a third of UK grassroots music venues are loss-making, according to the annual report of the sector charity Music Venues Trust (MVT).

Thirty-eight per cent of the 835 venues, most of them small and entirely independent, made a loss, with cost of rent a particular pressure point: venues that rent their premises saw those costs increase by an average of 37.5% compared with 2022.