Manchester’s Co-Op Live has agreed to meet with the Music Venue Trust to discuss a £1 ticket levy.
According to the BBC, Mark Davyd (CEO of the Music Venue Trust) said he was to meet with the Co-Op Live once the venue was up and running. The meeting comes amongst the furore with Co-Op Live’s executive director Gary Roden, who suggested some grassroots venues were “poorly run” whilst discussing the case for a £1 ticket levy to preserve them.
Davyd later criticised Roden’s comments, pointing out the average age of the artists booked to play at the venue was 52: “The average length of time it takes for a British artist to be booked to headline the Coop Live Arena from the date of the release of their first album is 30 (THIRTY) years. No British artist that started their career in the last decade is booked to headline the arena.”
He continued: “They literally used the occasion of their opening day event to claim that grassroots music venues were all poorly run and that they won’t financially contribute to the ecosystem because they don’t need the acts it produces.” Roden has since resigned over the controversial comments.
Now, Davyd will reportedly meet the Co-Op Live amidst the news that Billie Eilish added a £1 donation to an American charity in her ticket prices. The star is due to perform four dates at Co-Op Live later in 2025.
Speaking to BBC Radio Manchester, Davyd said Eilish’s “excellent initiative” showed there is “leeway” in the price of tickets for major shows to include a donation to “go back into the live music ecosystem”. “This is an important piece of work, but we need to see it on every show the Co-op Live doing and every ticket they sell,” he added.
Co-Op Live have faced mounting criticisms due to the multiple postponements of their opening shows. Peter Kay was due to perform there on April 23 and 24, but his dates were rescheduled twice to late May.
That decision was made after a test event featuring Rick Astley, which was beset by problems, including several thousand tickets being axed at the last minute.
The case for the £1 ticket levy was presented to the UK Parliament last month, with the Music Venue Trust arguing that “the big companies are now going to have to answer” for the scale of the problem faced by smaller venues.
Recently, it was announced Alien Ant Farm and CKY had become the first American band to add a £1 ticket levy to their UK tours.
It follows a similar move by Enter Shikari last year; last May, the band shared details of a 2024 run of UK tour dates, where £1 from each ticket sold was donated to the Music Venue Trust.
“As a band, we have seen the work that Music Venue Trust are doing for grassroots venues across the UK and were inspired to lend our support” said Alien Ant Farm frontman Dryden Mitchell. We are honoured to be the first American bands to be involved in this initiative and would urge other artists who enjoy playing in the UK to follow suit.”
In January, the Trust published a report that outlined the “disaster” that struck UK grassroots venues in 2023.
Among the key findings into their “most challenging year”, it was reported that last year saw 125 UK venues abandon live music and that over half of them had shut entirely – including the legendary Moles in Bath.
Some of the more pressing constraints were reported as soaring energy prices, landlords increasing rate amounts, supply costs, business rates, licensing issues, noise complaints and the continuing shockwaves of COVID-19, issues that would apply to a business regardless of how well it is run.
Overall, it was found that venues’ rent had increased by 37.5 per cent year-on-year, with them operating at an average profit margin of just 0.5 per cent.
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