Nurturing Talent - A fund to help the struggling grassroots music venues in Manchester "where talent is nurtured and the city's music begins" has been established. The £245,000 fund created by Manchester City Council, in partnership with the Music Venue Trust, has been set up to meet the cost of increasing business rates. Small venues are feeling "financial strain" following a cut in discounts given by the government's business rates scheme, external from 75% in 2024/25 down to 40% in 2025/26, the trust said.
Kate Lowes, from the Manchester Music City network said: "Business rates relief is one of the sector's most pressing concerns". Applications are open until Christmas for the fund, which is raised from revenue generated by concerts such as Oasis at Heaton Park and business rates from larger venues including the new Co-op Live arena.
Culture Funding - The Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation has pledged more than £500,000 to culture projects across Birmingham and the West Midlands, including the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Emma Rice Company. The new targeted fund is a bid to support increasingly "endangered" arts organisations in the area, the charity’s chair Simon Thurley said. "We hope this programme will see our grants make a larger collective impact on a very local level in Birmingham," he said. "However, we are offering just a small part of the solution to a much larger problem."
Dream Weaver - Sting has praised the galleries and gig venues that inspired him to pursue his dream when he was growing up in north-east England. The Wallsend-born musician has thrown his weight - and money - behind fundraising for a £10m endowment fund to sustain "creative futures on Tyneside" at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead. Ahead of an intimate gig at the venue in front of fellow donors, Sting said he did not know what he wanted to be growing up, but access to the arts lit a passion inside him. "I didn't want to work at the shipyard, I didn't want to work in the coalmine, I had no idea, but art gave me some sort of clue as to what I would aspire to be," he said.
Retail News - The sculptor of a statue of Motörhead frontman Lemmy has said he has signed the lease on a new shop which will sell merchandise and items linked to the late rock star. Andy Edwards said the idea had come about as a way to accommodate and welcome all the visitors that had come to Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent since the statue was unveiled in May. Mr Edwards said he hoped the new shop would give fans a place to socialise as well as helping to build momentum behind a project to reopen the nearby Queen's Theatre as a live music venue, recording studio and music school to be known as Kilmister Halls.
Long Runner - Wicked has become the ninth-longest-running production in West End history and the longest-running show to have played at its current home, the Apollo Victoria Theatre. The milestone was reached following the matinee on 1 November and was marked by a plaque unveiled at the venue. It has beaten the previous record for longest-running show at the theatre, which was Starlight Express. The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical ran for 7,406 performances there.
‘Extortionate’ - Organisers and locals have expressed fears of “extortionate” accommodation costs, reduced audiences and “turmoil” at next year’s Edinburgh Fringe after a large concert was scheduled to take place over the final weekend of the festival. Responding to the clash, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society has urged for a “more sensible approach to the planning and timing of big events” in the Scottish capital.
Last week, it was announced that Bon Jovi would perform at Edinburgh’s 67,000-seat Murrayfield Stadium on 28 August, prompting concerns of a repeat of the situation when Oasis and AC/DC played gigs at the same venue during this year’s fringe.
Hotel prices in Edinburgh jumped over 90% when Oasis played three concerts at Murrayfield during this year’s festival, with the average room costing £613 per night, according to an analysis by audit, tax and consulting firm RSM UK.
(Jim Evans)
