IVW Founder and CEO spoke with Dan McCarthy at The Ground Up last week about Independent Venue Week and the venue community around the UK for a piece in The Guardian that will appear soon. The theme of the interviews is about t
Dan is a journalist reporting on music and culture for The Guardian, The Quietus, Dazed, Clash and elsewhere. He started the project with his friend Will because they realised there was no dedicated space documenting the stories behind the UK’s grassroots and independent venues. The Ground Up travels nationwide to ensure this platform represents scenes across the country, not just London. We think it captures the heart and soul of our venue family and have huge respect for them both as it’s an entirely voluntary project, done out of love for live music and managed between working life.
We wanted to share some highlights from the piece but you can read the full feature here
“I’ve always said that if you want people to get behind something, battering them over their head by telling them how tough things are isn’t a good reason for them to come out.”
From the get-go, Sybil is clear in her rebuttal of the overarching narrative around music venues, and how, when it permeates mainstream conversations, it can become counterproductive. “If you constantly tell people these places are struggling and they’re all closing, why would anybody want to go?”
She’s matter-of-fact about the state of play and where the cultural conversation has been heading post-pandemic. Far from denying the problems the industry faces, she places the struggle within a broader scope, one in which so many aspects of society are being challenged, institutions subverted, beliefs dismantled. “Of course there are challenges, but there are challenges not just with music venues, the artist community, promoters or even the creative sector as a whole,” she says. “The world’s kind of on fire really, isn’t it?”
It’s this articulation that makes Independent Venue Week (IVW) such a tonic for our troubled times. It places celebration and inter-venue cooperation front and centre, an affront to the divisiveness, individualism and confrontation that permeates so much of modern life. “When I set it up, I co-owned Moles in Bath. It became clear to me very quickly just how unseen we were, and I just thought, why? So I really felt we had a chance to celebrate. I looked at the Record Store Day model and I thought, what a game-changer that’s been. It just felt like a really great way to shine a spotlight and bring everyone together.”
“Some of the feedback we get is that people just feel, for this one week, part of a nationwide community rather than beavering away on their own trying to deliver arts and culture,” she says. “I think we’ve never really wavered from that. That’s what’s kept us going. And it’s certainly what brought 6 Music in – they enjoyed the fact that it was positive and celebratory.”
“When Frank Turner was ambassador for us in year two, he rang me up and said, ‘Can I just say thank you for making this not about closures and making it a celebration.’ We’re seeing everybody coming up behind us now and saying the same thing: ‘We’re worn down. It’s time for some good news.’”
“We have a campaign called ‘Where Does Music Take You?’ The meaning is twofold – where does it take you emotionally? You can hear a record from your childhood and it immediately takes you back. But also where does it take you geographically? We’re trying to encourage people to get together with a group of friends, take Friday off and drive somewhere. Go to a town or a city you’ve not been to before. Pick two or three shows to go to over the weekend and explore the place during the day.”