Own Our Venues: Music Venue Trust Official Statement

We are delighted to let you know that the Music Venue Properties Board met today (31 March 2023) to consider the outcome of the Own Our Venues campaign and voted unanimously to move ahead with modelling the purchase of the first set of Grassroots Music Venues.

This means that the Own Our Venues campaign has successfully concluded with the creation of a funded and functioning Charitable Community Benefit Society. This community owned society will now forge ahead to deliver one of the primary long-term goals of MVT; radical change to the ownership of the UK’s grassroots circuit to deliver stable, supported and ethically managed properties that provide long term security for Britain’s fantastic venue operators.

At close of play yesterday, £2,318,210 had been raised from 1261 individual investors. In the face of extraordinary times for the economy and the political life of the nation, this is a remarkable achievement and demonstrates once again that the music community believes passionately in the importance of these vital spaces for artists and audiences.

Mark Davyd, CEO, MVT

“MVT has a motto: ‘People who say it cannot be done should get out of the way of the people doing it’. I am immensely proud of my team for once again proving that the grassroots community are the people who can get it done.

I would especially like to single out Matt Otridge, who has steered this project through incredibly turbulent times to a fantastic conclusion. Without Matt’s dedicated work across the last ten months this simply would not have been possible”

Music Venue Properties will be writing to all investors before 17 April with a clear modelled plan to start the purchase of venues, and plans to complete the purchase of its first venues prior to Summer 2023.

Rhoda Dhakar, MVP Board Member

“Today I’m so happy because we’re at the beginning of a beautiful partnership between all of you who love seeing live music in Grassroots Venues and all of us who play in and run those venues. MVP has raised the money to make a start on a new ownership model creating permanent homes for live music, no longer relying on the temporary benevolence of commercial landlords. It’s a model we want to roll out across the country, stabilising this sector in perpetuity! Let’s go!”