Music Venue Trust launches #GOLOCAL campaign to protect grassroots venues

The Music Venue Trust (MVT) has launched a new initiative dubbed #GOLOCAL to encourage music fans to support their local grassroots music venues.

The #GOLOCAL campaign strongly emphasises enjoying live music in a safe environment by urging music fans to visit local grassroots music venues, avoiding mass transport and large crowds of people.

Since the onset of the pandemic, the MVT has played a vital role in helping the grassroots music community provide safe environments in which to host live music events, while also prioritising the health and wellbeing of audiences, venue staff, artists, and support crew.

The grassroots music community is continuing to offer a vibrant programme of live music events, such as the The National Lottery’s Revive Live Tour, which started this month and aims to provide music fans with an opportunity to support those venues, artists and their support crew in environments, which have the experience and protocols in place to keep everyone involved safe.

Among the artists taking part in the The National Lottery’s Revive Live Tour are Del Amitri, The Libertines and Dirty Pretty Things star Carl Barat, Grandma’s House, Panic Shack, The Snuts, The Howl & The Hum, Marino & Mace The Great, Minas, Noah Bouchard and Yazmean.

Mark Dayvd, CEO of the MVT, commented: “From day one of this crisis we have liaised directly with government and medical experts and have been at the heart of the discussions around how to stage responsible live music events and reopen every venue safely. 

"We continue to offer full support and guidance to the grassroots music venue sector and with them have implemented numerous groundbreaking initiatives such as the Take A Test campaign to protect the health of audiences, artists, crew and venue staff, whose wellbeing has always been and remains our number one concern.

“It is clear to us, given the current data available to us, that the safest way to enjoy live music at present is to do so at a local level, avoiding mass transport and large crowds of people. 

"We see this difficult and uncertain period as an opportunity to put the focus firmly back on local music venues and to encourage people to investigate the many amazing opportunities to safely experience live music within their own communities.”

Headliner recently spoke to Davyd at length about the future of the live music industry. In an in-depth interview, he discusses the challenges facing the grassroots sector, the ongoing issues being caused across the board by covid, and how the continued return of live events will reveal the full extent of Brexit and its impact on touring professionals, from artists and tour managers, to behind the scenes technical crew.

You can listen to the interview in full below: