Positive thinking

The myriad challenges facing grassroots venues is, sadly, a recurrent topic around these parts - so how about, for a change, we avoid dwelling on the problems and instead focus on the potential solutions?

In an article for Rolling Stone, Emma Wilkes has proposed four: ownership of venues by those who are actually running them (which removes a lot of the precarity, and certainly seems to be working for the Moon here in Cardiff), "top-down 'research and development' investment from arenas", friends in high places (I never imagined I'd hear Jeremy Corbyn talking about Enter Shikari), and well-off musicians remembering their roots and pitching in to help.

To those, you could add rate freezes and exemptions for venues, caps on their energy bills and lobbying against punitive legislation and licensing conditions such as noise regulations.

I'll admit that when the Music Venue Trust's Mark Davyd proposed the second of Wilkes' solutions - the owners of arenas and other large-scale venues making a financial contribution to the operating costs of those further down the pipeline - back in March, I publicly welcomed the suggestion while privately remaining deeply sceptical of it ever happening. But perhaps we should allow ourselves to be more optimistic in light of the frankly astonishing news - also reported by Wilkes, this time for NME - that Live Nation have decided not only to stop taking a cut of merch sales at all of the venues they operate in the US, but also to offer financial assistance to touring artists. If a corporate behemoth like Live Nation can make a positive change of that magnitude, then there's genuine hope.

Meanwhile, there's been some good news on the local level too, with the announcement that the old Cardiff Transport Club is being converted into a new home for Sustainable Studios and will incorporate a music venue. When it comes to support for the city's music infrastructure, Cardiff Council are much maligned (including round these parts) - so it's only fair that we applaud their efforts in helping to make this happen. That said, the arrangement is only temporary - the lease will run for three years and Lynda Thorne, the Council's Cabinet Member for Housing and Communities, has referred to the development of "a longer-term plan for the site", so there remains an element of precarity.