London’s O2 Arena announces landmark funding for UK grassroots gig venues
Over 150 grassroots venues have closed since 2023…
5 min read
Credit: The O2 📸
Music Venue Trust (MVT) have made significant strides in 2025 to save grassroots venues and ensure funding is redistributed across the music scene.
Up and down the UK, venues are closing down at an alarming rate due to rising operating costs and a lack of funding. In 2024, MVT reports that 810 grassroots venues across the UK hosted 162,092 events, which garnered 19.4 million audience visits.
Without a grassroots music scene, there is less opportunity for new talent and ultimately fewer spaces for people to express themselves.
Artists of all sizes have been playing their part in uplifting the grassroots scene, which ultimately shaped their craft over the years. Coldplay, Sam Fender, The Last Dinner Party, Enter Shikari, Katy Perry, Mr Scruff, and more have all raised money from their ticket sales over the last 12 months.
In fact, Sam Fender even donated his Mercury Prize award money straight to the charity.
The UK government has also backed the proposed voluntary £1 levy on tickets for large arena and stadium concerts and is looking to extend Arts Council funding.
More recently, London’s O2 Arena, the UK’s second-largest indoor concert venue, has announced it will now donate a portion of proceeds from its concerts to grassroots venues across the country. As well as a six-figure donation to MVT, the O2 will now make donations every time a new artist plays the venue over the next three years.
The O2 Arena is a venue in the UK that many bands and artists strive to reach one day. Radiohead recently broke the record for the highest attendance at an O2 concert, with 22,355. However, the only way to reach such heights is through cutting your teeth on the grassroots scene, a sentiment that was echoed by Mumford & Sons’ Ben Lovett:
“We think it’s brilliant that a venue like the O2 is making a meaningful donation. To contribute, as we all should, towards a more sustainable ecosystem within live music in the future.”
This latest arena to follow suit will make an enormous difference to the grassroots economy, but we are already looking ahead to what other initiatives can be employed to protect the scene.
Emma Bownes, Senior VP of Venue Programming at AEG Europe, says:
“Every artist who headlines the O2 for the first time reflects the strength of that grassroots network…we’re investing in the pipeline that nurtures the next generation of breakthrough artists and ensures they have a place to start.”
If you’re wondering how you can help save your favourite spaces, you can do so by supporting the venues by attending local gigs, donating to MVT and spreading the word on social media. Utilise this gig guide to make the most of your local area.
Find out more information here.
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