The Music Venue Trust, the UK charity that aims to protect the interest of grassroots music venues, has launched a #saveourvenues campaign.
The organisation, which says that 556 UK venues are currently threatened by permanent closure, is asking music fans to get involved in their campaign to stop the closures happening.
"Without the support of music fans and artists literally hundreds of the UK’s grassroots music venues could go out of business, never to return, in the coming months," says Trust CEO Mark Davyd. "Please help to save every single grassroots music venue in the UK so that it can reopen after this crisis and continue to be a home to our musicians and our communities.”
Fans can donate to local venues in danger of shutting (see map, below), watch lockdown shows by artists supporting the campaign, donate to the a national #saveourvenues fund, and help spread the word on social media using the #saveourvenues hashtag.
Musician Frank Turner says, "The UK live music industry is staring into the abyss right now. I’m not able to save the whole thing on my own, but I decided to do a series of livestream shows to raise money for specific independent venues that I know and love, and that are in serious risk of disappearing right now.
"The success of these shows demonstrated the love that exists between music fans and their favourite grassroots music venues so the #saveourvenues campaign is a brilliant way of building on that and hopefully giving artists and music fans a chance to get involved and play a big part in helping them survive."
