The Big Topic: the UK doesn’t need more new arena venues
Currently, the United Kingdom is midst of a nationwide crisis. The divide between the rich and the poor has never been more significant in recent history, with the ongoing music venues situation epitomising the problems which riddle the nation. While grassroots venues, the bedrock of the music scene, are struggling to survive, plush multi-purpose arenas, costing hundreds of millions to build, are popping up across the land.
Mark Davyd, CEO of the Music Venue Trust, believes the future of grassroots venues needs to be prioritised before we can consider building more arenas. He states that without these community hubs, Britain won’t produce artists that can fill arenas, which is true to a degree. However, in recent years, many musicians have used social media to circumvent the grassroots circuit and immediately move on to bigger stages. Yet, that fact doesn’t take away from the cultural importance of these venues and how they are the main breeding ground for the British music scene.
Current arenas under construction include Manchester’s Co-op Live, the YTL Arena in Bristol, the New Cardiff Bay Arena, Edinburgh Arena, and Gateshead’s The Sage. London’s MSG Sphere is yet to be confirmed but is still under discussion, as are the Sunderland Arena and Dundee Arena.
Additionally, the costs relating to the New Cardiff Bay Arena have skyrocketed. The venue, which is to have a capacity of 17,000, was supposed to open its doors in 2025, but that’s been pushed back until 2026. It’s also expected to cost £280million, over £100m more than first envisaged. The Welsh city is already home to the Cardiff International Arena, which boasts a capacity of 7,500.
In a recent op-ed for Music Week, Davyd wrote: “MVT believes that no more arenas should open to host live music events in the UK until we can guarantee they have a reliable and sustainable future talent pipeline that warrants them being opened. The future must be based on the UK’s ability to continue to nurture and develop new artists to fill the stages of these arenas”.
He added: “The question isn’t whether these arenas are going to be making a contribution to the work our grassroots music venues do to create the talent on which they depend, it is whether they will do it willingly. Be sensible, work with MVT as joint stakeholders, or wait until the next government gets fed up with what’s happening and taxes every ticket to make it happen.”
While these arenas don’t only showcase live music and feature everything from WWE to stand-up comedy, they are predominantly filled by musicians. Only a select handful of artists have large fanbases to require them to play arenas. Still, due to a lack of other places to play, arena tours are becoming the norm for many artists, even if they have to close the top tier of the venue due to ticket sales.
Building costly multi-purpose arenas may make financial sense for those in head offices, but they are not what the music scene requires. Almost every city already has a 10,000-plus capacity arena. However, Britain desperately needs more venues larger than the standard 2,000-capacity mid-size O2 Academy and smaller than the planned 23,500-capacity Co-Op Live. Once an artist outgrows the mid-size venues, they have no choice but to graduate straight to arenas because of the lack of 5,000-capacity venues.
Outside of London, home to Hammersmith Apollo and Brixton Academy, and Manchester, which has the O2 Apollo and Victoria Warehouse, artists must leap from mid-size venues to arenas. Many choose to stay at the O2 Academy level because it makes financial sense not to take the risk to scale up on such a tremendous level, and they instead stagnate or regress. If a less dangerous option existed to allow artists to grow organically, then there would likely be more acts that could sell out arenas in the long term – if that is the overall ambition.
However, even if more cities such as Newcastle had venues of comparable size to Hammersmith Apollo, there would still be a reliance on grassroots venues to develop talent who can fill the room. Therefore, Davyd’s idea to suggest arenas should help fund smaller venues would help sustain the future of British music.
This summer, Reading & Leeds will be headlined by Sam Fender, Lewis Capaldi and Foals, all artists who cut their teeth by playing grassroots venues but have become arena acts. In 2017, as an unsigned artist, Capaldi sold-out Glasgow’s 300-capacity King Tut’s Wah Wah Club, and now he’s one of Britain’s most successful exports. However, for the next Lewis Capaldi to prosper, his pathway must be preserved for future generations.
If the New Cardiff Bay Arena owners can afford to pay £270m to construct the venue, they can also donate a percentage of ticket sales to help sustain local community venues such as the Clwb Ifor Bach. If action isn’t taken, in the future, arenas will solely exist to stage Peter Kay stand-up shows and the annual Strictly Come Dancing tour.
