The UK’s celebration of independent and grassroots music venues returns
Following its eleventh edition in 2024, Independent Venue Week is back for 2025 to highlight the importance of grassroots venues across the country – without them, we’d miss epic moments like these ones.
It’s been another challenging twelve months for venues and the nightlife industry, particularly in the capital. The Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) warned that if clubs continue to close at the rate they have been since March 2020 (three clubs per week, 150 clubs per year), then our ‘Last Night Out’, when the UK’s clubs have vanished, could be 31st December 2029. BBC London also reported that there are more 24-hour gyms in the capital than there are 24-hour nightclubs as the number of bars and clubs with 24-hour licences has decreased from 183 in 2021 to just 58.
At the end of November last year, MOTH Club in Hackney revealed that it was under threat thanks to the proposed development of flats on Morning Lane right next to the venue. A petition was launched to help object to the plans and protect the venue, and MOTH’s programmer Keith Miller has said that “at the moment, the council are deliberating the application and the objections. We are working on a Save The Moth Club event series to raise the profile of the situation and still trying to push the petition towards 20k.”
After picking up the Festival Award for Wide Awake at the 2024 Rolling Stone Awards, Keith (who is also a booker for the fest) referenced the importance of independent venues in his acceptance speech. He said, “Being an independent festival booker and event is pretty rare these days, there’s hardly any of us left. The way that the current music industry works, it’s pretty difficult to survive. We need to change that. We need more independent events, more independent culture. I’ve seen two people on this stage already tonight that have come through MOTH Club, which is under threat – Confidence Man and Jamie Demetriou – we need to protect these places, we need to protect these events.
“We’ve built small shows from eight band all-dayers up to a 25,000 capacity festival on our own, without massive companies. We need that to keep happening, we need that to be allowed. If you have the power, if you’re a big act, you need to support independent culture in the same way that it’s helped you to start out.”
Hundreds of shows will be taking place at over 200 spaces all over the UK for the 2025 edition of Independent Venue Week, with the likes of Ibibio Sound Machine, The Magic Numbers, Gilles Peterson, The Bug Club, Dodgy, The Blockheads, Ten Fé, C Duncan, Lizzie Esau + Dirty Blonde, and Do Nothing all performing, along with IVW ambassadors Gwenno (in Cardiff), rEDOLENT (in Scotland) and YolanDa Brown, who’ll be celebrating the music of Bob Marley at her own venue Soul Mama in London.
As well as being an acclaimed saxophonist, broadcaster and educator, YolanDa became an independent venue owner herself in 2024 when she opened Soul Mama in Stratford. Speaking about Independent Venue week, she said, “Independent venues are, and will always remain important to the music ecosystem. They are the heartbeat of the live experience, not just for artists but for audiences as well. Within these intimate spaces, countless stories are told – some songs and performances may never transcend the walls, yet they leave a lasting mark, offering hope, joy, inspiration, and sometimes even tears. These venues are the breeding grounds and an important outlet for creativity and expression. As a new venue owner, it is important to have more diversity in music venue ownership in order to create a platform for new stories to be told.”
Huw Stephens and Steve Lamacq are also hosting a series of IVW shows on BBC 6 Music, presenting deep dives into the UK’s independent live music industry and performances from BIG SPECIAL at Brudenell Social Club in Leeds and Låpsley and Gilles Peterson at Margate Arts Club.
If you can’t make it to any of the gigs this IVW, there’s another way you can support the grassroots music industry. Alexandra Palace, the Music Venue Trust and 45 Original have also teamed up to launch the ‘Loved not Lost’ Venue Series, featuring a limited-edition collection of prints that celebrate the UK’s most iconic venues and their musical heritage. The first one being Ally Pally and the prints are for sale here, with 10% of the profits going to the Music Venue Trust.
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Key Information
Dates | Mon 27th January – Sun 2nd February 2025
Address | Various locations
For more information | independentvenueweek.com
