KNIGHTS OF THE ROUNDTABLE: VENUES

The last 18 months have been incredibly tough for venues, whose businesses disappeared overnight in March 2020 and were the last to reopen earlier this year. Additionally, uncertainty has reigned following the Government’s introduction of vaccine passports, which still haven’t fully come into force. Thankfully, funding, furlough schemes and sheer creativity have kept many businesses afloat, while dogged campaigning by the Music Venue Trust has saved many of the U.K.’s grass-roots venues. But that work is far from over—the latest stats from MVT say the sector is facing debts of £90 million.

Here, the heads of venues across the U.K. break down these and other pressing issues. Jay Taylor runs the diary at Manchester’s Night & Day Cafe (250 cap.); Lucy Noble is the Artistic and Commercial Director at historic London venue the Royal Albert Hall (5k cap.); Steve Sayer is VP/GM at The O2 Arena (20k cap.) in London; and Rose Wilcox leads programming at The Leadmill (900 cap.) in Sheffield.

What are the biggest challenges that you’re facing as a venue operator?
Jay Taylor: The biggest threat to grass-roots music venues right now is the fact that 93% of Music Venue Alliance members—or pretty much every grass-roots music venue in the U.K.—have a landlord that isn’t connected to the business. That means there isn’t a cultural investment in the business, and it’s what could close a venue more than anything. During COVID, the biggest threat has been the fact that landlords could have shut venues down because they weren’t able to pay the rent as a result of not being able to sell tickets and drinks. Not to say that some landlords weren’t benevolent—some were, some weren’t, and some were stopped from closing businesses only because of the Government moratorium on evictions, which expires next March.

Lucy Noble: Audience confidence. We had the BBC Proms on over the summer, which normally would have sold extremely well, but it wasn’t sold out—the first few weeks of the season were around half of what ticket sales would usually be, so we could see that audience confidence wasn’t quite there yet. That has a huge commercial impact on not only the venues but the promoters as well. It will be interesting to see how ticket sales continue throughout the winter.

Steve Sayer: Beyond the uncertainty that everybody in the business is facing, the biggest challenge is probably around staffing. A lot of teams have been out of practice, a lot of our suppliers have been shut down and elements of the supply chain have disappeared. Getting back up to speed, given an 18-month hiatus, is a challenge that we’ll continue to face. We’re dealing with new processes having to do with operating in a COVID-secure environment. On the programming side, the challenge is the fact that this is a global pandemic, and international touring artists, particularly from North America, are not traveling because there’s too much risk involved with those tours. It’s probably going to take until the spring for global touring to start to settle down.

Rose Wilcox: It’s the unknown in terms of how we’re going to need to adapt and having to make last-minute changes to plans. Things like vaccination passports or restrictions to entry might change people’s ticket-buying habits and influence people to not come or ask for refunds, which will have a knock-on effect for artists who might have to push shows back even further after rearranging two or three times already.

How confident are you that you’ll be able to make a full recovery from the effects of the pandemic, and how long do you think that might take?
Noble: It’s going to take years. We took a £20m loan out, and we’re around £35m in debt now. It’s going to take a long time to recover and repay the loan. But the Royal Albert Hall is a business that is commercially successful normally so we’re being positive about it and thinking about how we can get additional income streams to try and service paying off our loan so that we can continue strongly and positively, especially when we’ve just celebrated our 150th anniversary.

Sayer: We’re bullish about that; 2022 is going to be a record year at The O2 if things continue as we expect them and we’re fully open all year. Even if international artists don’t start playing until April or May, we’re still going to be significantly ahead of where we would normally be in a super-busy year. We’ve already got over 220 shows confirmed or penciled in. We’re confident that by the end of next year, we’ll be back up to where we were pre-pandemic.

Taylor: What I know is that the diary, which is full of amazing things, is full pushing out into 2022 now. Our programming is as diverse and interesting as it always has been, but a lot of the things that are coming from overseas will probably land next year. I’m seeing customer confidence being quite robust, which I think has a lot to do with how venues are being forward-facing about how they’re going to live up to their part of the bargain when it comes to encouraging people to sanitize, take tests before attending, registering if you’ve got antibodies and for people who are displaying symptoms or have tested positive not to come to a show. Encouraging good and kind behavior is working, and we’re seeing people coming to shows who’ve thought it through.

What has enabled you to survive during the pandemic?
Wilcox: Funding has been great. We’ve worked hard on making sure we’ve got applications in for absolutely everything that’s been available. We’ve also had support from customers who’ve purchased merchandise, made donations, kept hold of tickets and not asked for refunds. The community really came together to help support us. Also, artists have been helping with performances which have encouraged donations.

Noble: Aside from the loan, we did something called Royal Albert Home right at the beginning of the pandemic, where artists broadcast on behalf of the Hall from their homes. We got some donations from that, and it helped keep our profile going. We’ve also had some philanthropic gifts, but there’s still a long way to go. The industry working together through the pandemic is also worth mentioning. The new LIVE trade body, which arrived because of the pandemic but is already dealing with all sorts of other challenges, has been a positive support for everyone within the industry during the last year and a half.

Sayer: We’ve taken the benefit of the furlough scheme, so for much of the last 14 months, we’ve had a lot of the team on furlough. I’m sure that was frustrating for them, but it was a godsend, because it meant we could keep the majority of employees on our books. We did some restructuring at the start of the pandemic so, unfortunately, we did lose some good people. But we tried to keep that to the absolute minimum, and now we’re in a position where we’re rehiring again. We got a bit creative with how we use the venue—while the arena has been closed, our entertainment district—bars, restaurants and shops—have been open, so we’ve been able to trade to a degree. We opened the venue for backstage tours last summer, which was hugely popular. In the early part of the pandemic, we handed over the keys to the National Health Service, and they used the venue as a training facility. We’ve also tried to get creative with our partners and given them the opportunity to utilize some of the venue assets. It’s been a combination of things, and we’ve got a solid balance sheet, so we were able to weather the storm.

The U.K. Government backtracked on its plan to bring vaccine passports in from September but has kept it in reserve for venues with a capacity of 500 or over should infections rise. Where do you stand on the policy?
Taylor: I think every venue has to make their own decision. Legally, venues don’t have to do anything at the moment. Every venue understands their business better than anybody else, and it wouldn’t be right for me to tell another business what to do. Most people are suggesting good behavior, rather than forcing it, and that makes more sense at a grass-roots venue where we’re talking about capacities of 300, tops. Plainly, the risks there aren’t the same as with large concerts, sporting events and mass gatherings.

Sayer: We’ve been operating with the NHS COVID Pass for the shows we’ve had, which shows that you’ve either been double vaccinated, have a negative test or immunity. The fans have responded really well—for the Gorillaz show in August, over 95% of the audience turned up with their COVID Pass ready to go. For the less than 5% who didn’t, they were all vaccinated so we were able to troubleshoot on the evening and get them into the venue. We know from our own fan survey that the vast majority of fans overwhelmingly support a measure like the COVID Pass, because it makes people feel safe and it builds confidence.

Noble: Ultimately, we’d rather just get back to normal, but we would do anything in the interim to be able to do events—the last thing we want is to be locked down again. So if that’s what we have to do to get back in the interim, great. We are already asking people to bring one form of evidence on the doors—which is vaccine, negative test or antibodies—and we do spot checks for that so we can do it, but it’s a lot easier not to have to do anything. Whenever you increase checks, we have to increase the doors and get more stewards. It costs a lot more money to put all these things in place at a time when we’re losing money.

What’s the most exciting development happening in the venue business for you right now?
Wilcox: It’s getting back to the place we were at before we closed, though, not necessarily being able to expand on that because there have been so many changes, and we’re having to really work to get back up to that level. But we’ve had opportunities to collaborate with new people—like the Sheffield Music Trails with the council as part of its Summer in the Outdoor City program and a big free concert with the University of Sheffield—and I think that will continue.

Noble: The fact we can actually do performances again. Also, I’m looking at the digital strategy for the Hall now and how we extend our live brands outside the live experience. There are some opportunities there as a bolt-on, not as a replacement for live. We need to think about how people can consume live performance, and it might not always be in-person. Some of those things could be supporting new and developing young artists, who might not ordinarily be able to play the main stage at the Royal Albert Hall, but who we can give exposure to in other ways through our brand and perhaps livestreaming some of the shows that we are able to control. The Hall has about two live broadcasts a month anyway, so we have a very strong profile in that market, whether it’s broadcast on TV or livestreamed. We’re just trying to think about how we can expand and wrap around content for shows through things like interviews with artists and exclusive backstage footage. But ultimately, offering a live experience will always be at the heart of what we do.

Taylor: What I want to see is a sweaty human being in front of another sweaty human being and watch bolts of electricity spark between them. I’ve never been as excited watching a band on the TV as I have when I can see the whites of their eyes in a room.