Thank you to all who attended ‘Keeping LCR Music Venues on the Map’

Last night (Tuesday 22nd March 2020) we joined forces with University of Liverpool to host an event especially for local music venue owners, managers and gig promoters; which focused on ‘safeguarding and protecting local music venues’.

The event, at the Royal Philharmonic Music Room, encouraged attendees to share their opinions about issues currently affecting music venues and live music events. The key topics of discussion were: issues involving night-time transport, Agent of Change (local building developments and noise complaints), nightlife safety, audience numbers following Covid, energy costs and inflation, and supply chain issues.

Representative of LCR Music Board and Head of UNESCO City of Music Liverpool, Kevin McManus, said: “Protecting music venues is a key priority for the Music Board, so we were extremely grateful to see so many at from the sector at Tuesday’s event. All the insight and ideas documented will help the Music Board to better understand and support the sector, enabling us to continue lobbying around important issues, in order to protect live music locally.”

The event was hosted in collaboration with the University of Liverpool, who utilised the opportunity to collect data about the city regions’ music venues and infrastructure, in order to create a digital map. As well as acting as a venue directory, the data in their digital map can be used by Liverpool City Region Music Board to support the post-pandemic recovery and sustainability of the region’s live music sector.

Dr Mathew Flynn, LCR Music Board Member and Lecturer at University of Liverpool, said: “This intelligence about the different music venues in the city region will be invaluable to the Music Board; overtime it can be used to illustrate changes to the local live music sector and how it’s affected by certain policies and economic constraints.”

The event, which was chaired by Louise Nulty, LCR Music Board Member and Manger of The Studio, Widnes, included a detailed explanation of the ‘music venues map’, a number of focus group discussions about hot topics affecting music venues, and also a panel session and Q&A with key policy makers and specialists:

• Mark Dickens, Spatial Planning Lead Officer, LCR Combined Authority
• Huw Jenkins, Lead Policy Office for Transport, LCR Combined Authority
• John Hughes, Liverpool Nightlife CIC
• Craig Pennington, Future Yard

We look forward to sharing the event’s findings shortly. In the meantime if you have any questions please get in touch: info@lcrmusicboard.co.uk