Live music venues are the blood to Brighton’s beating cultural hear and everything must be done to ensure their survival in these trying times.

Header image from Resident Brighton

Live music venues are the cornerstones of Brighton culture and they are under threat

This is not a local phenom however, unrelenting governmental incompetence has left thousands of Britain’s venues facing uncertain futures, if not imminent closure.

Our venues are not just places to watch your mate’s band whip through a fifteen minute set whilst you nurse a six quid can of Red Stripe, they are critical community touchpoints offering free expression in safe environments. In no uncertain terms, they cannot be allowed to fail.

An irrepressible spirit of independence is what makes this city great and this must be protected.

Should venues such as Pipeline, The Hope and The Albert fail, the pieces will undoubtedly be picked up by the venture-capitalist-backed firms already seeking to sanitise live music in other cities.

No one wants to see Green Door Store turned into the 02 Academy Brighton. No one ever had the best Friday night of their life in a venue run by a fucking phone company.

The Music Venue Trust has launched the Save Our Venues CrowdFunder in an attempt to stave off this impending collapse and it needs all of our help.

“We have announced 107 venues [in Brighton] who are at immediate risk of closure due to the current crisis. Every week we stay closed that risk increases,” the trust commented.

“The situation is dire, government support has been exhausted, and it now falls to artists, music fans, local communities and the wider industry to take action.

“Without these venues the opportunities for artists and audiences to connect in a meaningful way at a local level will simply disappear in a lot of cases.”

The trust has set out to cgenerate £1.5m as to help support the 556 grassroots venues currently at risk of immediate closure. Businesses from all over Brighton have been doing their part to promote the cause, which has raised £1.1m to date, but there is much more work to be done.

Due to the rampant shithousery of the Tories venue owners currently find themselves having to cover not only the costs of maintaining a physical premises, but support a range of staff that are not covered by other governmental income schemes.

Bar staff, sound technicians, front of house, security, all these people have been left with little to no assistance from the powers at be, and if  live music is to return, operators must keep these people on. Such means that even owners that are lucky enough to not be facing imminent closure are presented with a range of outlays that must be accounted for.

With little clarity emerging over the way forward for live music it is imperative that venues receive financial support because lord know’s the fucking Tories won’t help. Separate venues are running individual fundraisers to assist the collective and they all need our support. We must save our venues.

Buy tickets, buy beers. Donate your fucking money. Brighton would not be the same without live music.