Written evidence submitted by Live Music Exchange

Submission information – about the Live Music Exchange
 

1. This submission is prepared by Dr. Adam Behr (Newcastle University) on behalf of Live Music Exchange, a research and Knowledge Exchange network run through the universities of Newcastle, Edinburgh and Turku (Finland). It is based on a longstanding research programme (including Research Council funded projects from 2008 to the present) and engagement with the UK’s music communities and industries, most recently the UK Live Music Census – the world’s first national survey of its kind (conducted with the co-operation of UK Music, the Musicians’ Union and the Music Venue Trust).

2. Directors of the Live Music Exchange are: Dr. Adam Behr (Newcastle University), Dr. Matt Brennan (University of Edinburgh), Professor Martin Cloonan (University of Turku), Emeritus Professor Simon Frith (University of Edinburgh), Dr. Emma Webster (University of Edinburgh).
    
3. We welcome this inquiry and the opportunity to provide evidence, and will focus primarily on music as source of cultural and social value.
   
   Executive Summary
    

• Access to culture with regard to live music is closely connected to issues surrounding the broader live music ecology, and smaller venues in particular.
• This feeds into opportunities for younger musicians, and the problems of audience development.
• It also relates to education and the broader goals of encouraging a culture of attendance at live music events, and broader cultural participation.
• Equality and diversity issues in the music sector are related to broader cultural issues, but there are nevertheless practical steps that the live sector can take.
• Recommendations for supporting the talent pipeline and goals of achieving equitable access to culture are related to the measures for supporting venues and musical careers.
  
  
  The Social and Cultural Value of Live Music

4. Findings from the UK Live Music Census reveal that participation in live music carries a range of benefits.

5. To better understand the social and cultural value of live music, the UK Live Music Census asked respondents to the audience survey what the got from live music and what the most important (intangible) music? What would you say are the most important (intangible) things that they take away from live music?’ Hundreds of free text responses were coded and themed, illustrating that live music:

• Enhances 
social bonding
• Is mood-enhancing
• Provides health and well-being benefits
• Offers a unique experience
• Forms a fundamental part of people’s identity
• Is inspiring
• Engages all the senses
• Offers the potential for transcendence.[1]
   

6. A selection of these is available in the UK Live Music Census 2017 report. Taken together they corroborate previous work on the cultural value of live music as part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s ‘Cultural Value Project’.[2] An examination of a series of events involving different genres and different promotional models at Edinburgh’s Queen’s Hall showed that while audiences for different events varied regarding issues like a preference for ‘surprise’ or a predictable experience, or ‘inward’ or ‘outward’ participation (such as rapt attention, or dancing), they all referenced an experience that, at its best, is in some way transcendent.[3]
    
7. While the cultural and intrinsic value of live music is difficult to quantify, qualitative research reveals the extent to which musical activity is woven throughout participants’ lives in significant and fundamental ways. Examples from the UK Live Music Census follow. As one respondent put it:

Music soothes the soul. It is more than entertainment, it is a communication and therapy, emotion and transcendence.
 Female, 55-59 years old, Wales.[4]

8. Likewise, the symbolic value of venues large and small for musicians is significant in terms of both emotional connection and career development.

[The venue is] regularly named as the UK’s best small venue. A big step and honour to support several well known touring acts, to then host our own night as headline [act] was pivotal in gaining great press and exposure.

Male semi-professional rock drummer, 40-44 years old, Scotland.[5]

9. Closely linked to this is the narrative value that venues bring to peoples’ lives – whether through being associated with milestone events (like meeting a partner) or broader supportive environment.

I had the best times with the best of friends at a time when my home life was in disarray (my dad had a brain tumour). [The venue] represented a release, feeling young again and reassured me I still ‘belonged’ in the scene.
Audience survey, female, 25-29 years old, North West.[6]

10. As described in detail in the UK Live Music Census[7] (and our submission to the DCMS Live Music Inquiry) many of these key resources are under threat. This symbolic and narrative value means that, once gone, they are difficult to replace – even if another performance space occupies the same site, which is often not the case.
     
11. Prior research into the relationships between different types of venue provided the example of the Duchess of York, in Leeds, now a Hugo Boss shop.[8] Every city in the UK has encountered such losses, as the ongoing activities of the Music Venue Trust in terms of both documenting and working to mitigate the situation illustrate.[9]
     
12. This interdependence across different types of venue can be conceived of according to an ‘ecological’ model[10] and is crucial for the development of a talent ‘pipeline’. Guy Dunstan of the National Arenas Association described the situation to us:

What you want to see is acts that have been developed and are learning their trade through the smaller venue network…we’re reliant on artists being developed through that network and scaling up to arena acts.[11]

13. Maintaining a healthy live music ecology, and supporting the smaller venues within it is therefore crucial to ensuring the flow of talent. Connections between venues and their local educational communities are also important. 57% of respondents to the online venue survey as part of the UK Live Music Census said that they have formal or informal links with educational communities such as universities and colleges and 40% provide volunteering and internship opportunities.[12]
     
14. Beyond this, participation in live music activity as musicians and audience members can foster a sense of community cohesion. Interview statements by the manager of a music pub in Gateshead – the Three Tuns – instructive here:

I think the venue has made the area more tolerant. Locals see diverse crowds, ethnic musicians and lots of gentle people at the venue and have responded by acting more responsibly. We run five local music festivals each year and we invite the local Asian and Kurdish community, which is sometimes the only non-white faces that the locals see. In the summer holidays, we offer free guitar and drum workshops to the local youth so that they can play loud and get really stuck in… I’ve seen people I’ve thought would turn out to be no-hopers in baseball caps turn out well because they have become regulars at the venue. We’ve become the longest-running and most loved live music pub in the area and local shopkeepers have said that the area is unrecognisable from when we started 16 years ago.[13]
 

Educational opportunities and provision for younger artists and audiences

15. Educational opportunities are also vital for supporting that the next generation of musicians. This pertains beyond formal musical training. Workshops conducted by the University of Edinburgh produced the observation that:

[M]usic education should aim not to simply help students to become effective musicians, but to be ‘artistic citizens’ who use their music to improve their wellbeing and that of others in their communities. This takes music education beyond formal curricula and institutions, and requires the integration and encouragement of all kinds of musical activities across many different types of practice. The aim is for the development of a music education that encourages open-mindedness and prepares learners for global citizenship.[14]

16. Further observations included the value of diverse and integrated musical learning experience, beyond just knowledge and assessment, and the importance of joining up primary, secondary, further and higher education, as well as private tuition, informal learning, and community activity. The emphasis of that series of workshops was primarily to inform music education in Scotland but we would note that those goals pertain more broadly too.

17. They also align with the challenge of venues and musicians in terms of provision for Under-18s. The ‘talent pipeline’ is closely associated with developing future audiences. The UK Live Music Census illustrated the difficulties that venues face in providing access to under-18s, with 20% of venues reporting that they are not open to under-18s or are only open with some exceptions. With limited resources to deploy in overcoming licensing hurdles, many smaller venues are forced to play safe with regard to provision for younger audiences. As one operator put it:

We allow under-18s in up to 7pm. After that time, it becomes very difficult to police and they don’t spend any money. We’re a struggling business and can’t afford or justify the extra work in supplying free water and ‘policing’ of under-18s.
Small music venue. North West, hosting/promoting live music for 10-20 years.[15]

18. This has knock on effects for emerging musicians, in terms of restricting their opportunities to play and, more broadly, curtailing the availability of live music for their potential audiences. One respondent to the UK Live Music Census described the situation:

Under-18s are severely let down by licensing laws in many venues. This has stifled the chances for many musicians, including myself (11pm rather than 7pm for instance).

Guitarist – 18-19 years old, South East.[16]

19. Music education extends beyond the classroom but involves a culture of access to live music with ramifications for both musicians and audiences.
     

Equality and access to culture
 

20. The cultural value of live music pertains beyond the grassroots. Access to culture, beyond the market value of live music, has been largely absent from discussions of, for instance, the secondary ticket market.[17] We address this in more detail in our submission to the DCMS Live Music Inquiry, but would note here that the broader goal of improving access to cultural professions starts with access to culture itself. A purely market driven assessment of ticketing sidelines that broader goal.
     
21. Regarding diversity, the UK Live Music Census also illustrates that the music industries, like many others, have work to do with regard to gender parity. Median earnings for professional and semi-professional musicians per gig vary according to type of ensemble or musicians with parity only for solo instrumentalists, as illustrated below, and male musicians generally paid more.
     
22. Median earnings per gig for professional/semi-professional respondents to the musician survey by gender: [18]

23. This is compounded, more broadly, by the make-up of the sector as a whole. Data from the live music census suggests that it is somewhat male-dominated, with males making up 68% of respondents to the musician survey who identify as professional, 81% of those who identify as semi-professional, and 55% of those who identify as amateur.[19]
     
24. While part of this relates to broader cultural issues in the UK and beyond (including in education), more equitable employment practices and encouraging safer gig spaces for women would help to alleviate the situation, as suggested by participants (including Tracey Wise the founder of Safe Gigs For Women) at Venues Day 2017.[20]
     
25. Recommendations:
    
    There is a high degree of interconnectedness between the live music ecology (and smaller venues) in supporting emerging talent, music education and the broader goals of ensuring equitable access to both culture and the cultural professions. Therefore, supporting small venues and the broader work in the community feeds into these broader goals.
    
    Our recommendations for support of the smaller venue sector pertain. These include:

• Continuing to develop a legally binding ‘Agent of Change’ principle, including a prompt and robust implementation into the new National Planning Policy Framework for England.
• An urgent review of business rates for music venues and other smaller spaces for live music.
• Ensuring that any local cultural policy recognises the economic and cultural value of live music and live music venues to the region, and that planning and economic policies take account of the actual and potential contribution of live music.
• Recognising small and medium music venues as key sites of artist and audience development and as cultural and community assets. 


Regarding encouraging access to live music for younger audience and musicians, to develop talent and future audiences, we recommend:

• Local authorities ensure that licensing restrictions do not overly inhibit venues’ ability to host gigs for under-18s
• Encouraging links between education communities and local live music venues and promoters.
• Further research into the leisure activities of young people, with particular reference to the place of live music therein, be undertaken in order to understand this better.
• Further research into the relationship between alcohol and live music, with an emphasis on young audiences/under-18s
• Local and national administrations encourage more extensive funding for emerging artists, venue infrastructure, tour support, and rehearsal spaces.
• Addressing broader inequality in the sector is an ongoing challenge that aligns with a broader societal challenge. Nevertheless, venues, promoters, artists – and audiences – can work to adopt measures and behaviours so that live music can be enjoyed in a safe space, such as: security staff being trained to look for people who look as if they have been spiked or who are upset; making sure that security staff are not being aggressive or making inappropriate comments; ensuring that there is at least one female member of security staff so that there’s at least one female for women to speak to in case of any issues.
  
  More data is available in the UK Live Music Census report, available at:
  http://uklivemusiccensus.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/UK-Live-Music-Census-2017-full-report.pdf
   

March 2018