Leeds and Sheffield music venues join fan ownership campaign

Two gig venues in Yorkshire have joined a campaign to take buildings into the ownership of music fans after struggling with rising costs and changing customer habits.

Northern Guitars in Leeds, Gut Level in Sheffield and Little Buildings in Newcastle have all joined Music Venue Properties’ Own Our Venues initiative, which supports grassroots venues through community ownership.

Music Venue Properties is a charitable community benefit society created by Music Venue Trust (MVT), which is hoping to raise more than £1.5m to buy the venues.

In 2023, the campaign raised £2.88m to secure the future of The Snug in Atherton, The Ferret in Preston, Le Pub in Newport, The Bunkhouse in Swansea and The Booking Hall in Dover.

The aim of the campaign is that the venues’ futures are protected from unsustainable rent rises imposed by landlords, who may also choose to evict their tenants or sell the buildings. The venues instead lease their sites from the trust.

Frazer Scott, one of the founders of Gut Level in Sheffield, said the venue had been considering community ownership when they approached Music Venue Properties.

He said: “We were exploring the idea of setting up a community benefit society ourselves to try to purchase the building, which is why we had a conversation with the landlord about sale.

“Our timeline was going to be four years to try and purchase the building, which was just a bit longer than the current lease term we’re on. But after thinking about it, the landlord came back to us and said he wanted to sell immediately, so it really scuppered our plans.”

Gut Level contacted MVP, which was looking for a new venue to take on after another bar dropped out.

Mr Scott said it was a challenging time for music venues and it was important to create stability by removing the risks of increased rents and unreliable landlords.

He said: “Everyone’s affected by the cost of living increasing at the minute – particularly issues around utility bills going up massively.

“If the building is held by a private landlord, then rent increases and landlords using really short-term leases means they’re not very secure.

“Fewer people are buying advance tickets, you’ve also got changing consumer habits around drinking. The new generation of students aren’t drinking so much.

“It’s coming from a few different directions and it just means the old models are less reliable. So you have to think of a different way to try and bring cash in.”

Northern Guitars in Leeds is a small music venue and guitar shop. Co-owner Rick Wade said he hoped the Own Our Venues campaign would help secure the long-term future of the business.

He said: “We aren’t able to do that without taking ownership of the premises.

“The way MVP is set up, it’s geared towards grassroots music venues. You couldn’t get much more grassroots than what we are. So it’s a natural avenue to explore.”

Mr Wade said hospitality businesses had been “hammered from left, right, and centre” in recent years.

“There’s a finite amount of money you stick on a pint of beer to try and get that money back and the two figures don’t often match up so it’s an extremely difficult tightrope to walk,” he said.

He added: “I would hope one of the outcomes of a deal with MVP is not just securing the premises, the bricks and mortar, it’s the advice and beneficial nature of being part of that family.

“It’s not so much for immediate financial gain because there isn’t any, you’re still paying the same rent or more, it’s just that the person that you’re paying it to has got your interests at heart, not their own.”