This Feeling celebrates its 6th birthday at London's Queen Of Hoxton - one of the city's best small live venues (Photo: Andy Crossland for Live4ever Media)
The Government will aim to secure the future of more small live venues around the UK by changing the parameters of last year’s Live Music Act so that it will now include clubs of a maximum capacity of 500.
A succession of iconic live venues have been forced to close their doors during the past few years in the face of escalating costs and legislation, while London’s famous 100 Club was only able to stave off its own threat of closure when a series of initiatives were launched back in 2010 by musicians and fans alike which successfully raised the required funds to secure a tentative future.
And now, after certain restrictions placed upon music venues by the 2003 Licensing Act were removed by the Live Music bill of 2012, a further change intending to broaden the reach of the act’s measures has been announced and is awaiting approval.
However, the Live Music Forum’s Phil Little has told Music Week he is concerned the changes, while welcomed, may have come far too late for many venues.
“The Live Music Forum campaigned for almost twenty years to bring about these changes and they are more than we hoped for,” he has said.
“However, it is plain that much of the damage to the scene has already been done. Without an improvement in audience attendance across the board we have an awful long way to go to match the vibrance of live music performance in previous decades.”
