**An online music festival featuring some of the biggest names in Scottish music has been organised to help save struggling venues amid the coronavirus crisis. **
“Save Our Scottish Venues festival”, organised by the Music Venues Trust (MVT) has pulled together performances from
KT Tunstall, Wet Wet Wet, Fatherson, Honeyblood and Be Charlotte.
The event is taking place this Friday 19th June across three 'stages' and will be streamed live.
Money raised through ticket sales will go towards helping venues including the Glad Cafe, Audio, Slay and Ivory Blacks in Glasgow. Curated by Music Venue Trust through the #SaveOurVenues campaign.
Ticket buyers will be directed to a streaming link to watch the performance. DONATE: 100% of the donations will be divided equally amongst Scottish Venues!! You can donate here >>
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/saveourvenuesscotland
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/saveourvenuesscotland
£5 for access to the live event, including hopping between stages. It is £8 for access to all of the sets for an extra 48 hours after the festival ends: - www.universe.com/events/save-our-scottish-venues-tickets-edinburgh-307Q9X
You can also purchase tickets through crowdfunder which will mean that we do not have to pay an admin fee: - www.crowdfunder.co.uk/saveourvenuesscotland
Joe Smillie, creative director of The Glad Cafe, says he has ‘no idea’ where the venue would be without help from MVT.
Speaking to Glasgow Live , he said: “It’s hard to think about the future right now while things are uncertain. “How are we supposed to open safely without extra support from the government? If we are to maintain social distancing, this obviously reduces our capacity thus massively affecting our bottom line which was already on a tightrope. How do we balance our incomings and outgoings with significantly reduced capacity?
“If we are asked to implement one way or traffic light systems, screens, soap stations, etc. how can we, as a cash-poor business, be expected to fork out for this in time for reopening and when we are supposed to start paying our staff’s wages again? “I feel that for such a financially wealthy country, the UK has really made a lot of money from the arts while neglecting its artists and venues and it is about time they did something to help them.”
For now, the venue is considering taking its events program online and reopening the café and restaurant while the rest is figured out.
“We’ve been applying to every grant that is supposedly on offer so we can reopen safely. We’ve also tried to stay engaged with our customers. We’ve held a six-week online course in Ableton Live - a music-making computer programme - with a grant we received from Creative Scotland.
“Our very popular open mic night that runs once a month has gone online too and they’ve run three very successful virtual events that have been live-streamed. These are all on our YouTube page.
"All the while we’ve been running Crowdfunder pages, meeting regularly with our board of directors and staff and attending webinars run by Creative Scotland, Music Venues Trust and the government. Zoom fatigue is real.
