Soho Live Music

As a part of the Soho FEAST we look to promote the Grassroots Venues that play Live Music in Soho.

London mayor Sadiq Khan has welcomed government proposals to safeguard live music venues by strengthening the ‘agent of change’ principle. It comes weeks after the mayor’s office announced the rate of small music venue closures has slowed, with numbers in the capital staying the same for the first time in a decade. In its housing white paper, released this week, the government outlined plans to amend the National Planning Policy Framework and strengthen the agent of change principle. This means that developers must take into account existing venues when building nearby and be responsible for ensuring their properties are adequately soundproofed. Implementing the principle was one of a number of recommendations made in a report published last year on how to tackle the decline of grassroots music venues. Welcoming the step, Khan described it as an integral part of protecting venues. “It’s completely unfair that a venue, which may have existed in an area for decades, should have to incur the cost of a new neighbour moving in, which can often result in its closure,” he added.

Night Tsar Amy Lamé went on to say that strengthening the agent of change principle would give venues a much-needed boost in their fight for survival.

The number of grassroots music venues in London dropped by 35% between 2007 and 2015, a new report has claimed - thestage.co.uk The finding is contained in the first publication by the Music Venues Taskforce, which was set up by the Mayor of London earlier this year to preserve the UK's small to medium-scale cultural venues. It found that the number of venues programming new artists in London has dropped from 136 in 2007 to 88 today. Research undertaken by the taskforce included an audit of London's music venues, which uncovered the loss of more than a third of grassroots venues in the capital. That decline in turn accounted for 41% of the total losses of music spaces between 2007 and 2015, the report claimed. The publication, called London's Grassroots Music Venues: A Rescue Plan, also claimed there has been a 30% drop in trading live music spaces overall in London. There are now 245 that remain open, it says. High-profile closures in London include the Astoria, which closed in 2009, Soho’s 12 Bar Club, and nightclub and cabaret venue Madame Jojo’s, which was forced to shut its doors last year after losing its licence. The taskforce described central London as an area that "has been historically synonymous with grassroots British music", but said it had seen an "exponential decline in venues". "[The decline] is not mitigated by the emergence of an alternative 'music zone' to replace it," the report said. It cited external factors such as development, licensing, lack of investment and gentrification among the reasons for a drop in grassroots cultural venues, but said there were also signs of market failure within the music industry. The report warned that a continuation of the decline could have major implications on the long-term future of the music industry as a whole in the UK, which is estimated to be worth £3.8 billion. "The relationship between the recorded music business, large festivals and arenas and small grassroots music venues needs examining. As with all ecosystems, the success of the whole depends upon every part working well. Without a regular supply of new acts, all parts of the music industry will gradually wither," it said.