Complaints in Wonderland

Charlotte Higgins paints a realistic picture of the appalling plight of small music venues –  “Soaring MDF prices, extortionate interval drinks, cash-strapped audiences: the arts are staring inflation in the face”, The Guardian,  19th August 2022 – however the bad news is it is actually worse than this. If you factor in the volunteer promoters for jazz, folk, indie, urban, etc then the picture is grim to the point of catastrophic for live music in the UK. The Department for Digital Culture Media and Sport is in denial and not only clueless about the plight of small venues but does not care.  Arts Council England has “Let’s Create” (please see my response here)  which is a strategy laudable in its intentions but regrettably does not address the problem,  which is a  lack of art form policy with action programmes. The Arts Council is bound by the rationality of the past and continues to be held in thrall to the major arts companies, who like the banks, are deemed too big to fail.