Fixing The Live Music Crisis
If you're an independent artist trying to tour the UK right now, you already know something's broken. But the scale of the crisis might surprise you: 84% of UK independent artists can't afford to tour in 2025. Let that sink in for a moment.
This isn't just about DIY musicians. We're talking about established artists with chart success, sold-out shows, and devoted fanbases who still can't make the numbers work. And it's getting worse.
The Numbers Don't Lie
The UK lost one grassroots music venue every two weeks in 2024. That's 25 venues gone in a single year! These are the venues where future headliners cut their teeth, where local scenes thrive, and where music fans discover their new favourite bands.
Mark Davyd, CEO of Music Venue Trust, put it bluntly: "We are not acting fast enough on these things, it's as simple as that."
Meanwhile, 43.8% of grassroots venues operated at a loss in 2024, despite contributing £526 million to the UK economy. The average profit margin? A razor-thin 0.48%. One bad month and you're done.
When Success Isn't Enough
Here's where it gets really depressing. Hard Life (FKA Easy Life and forced to change their name by a guy who owns some planes) had to cancel entire European and American tours after tickets went on sale because they couldn't make it work financially. This is an established band with tours, albums and a genuine following.
"We were supposed to do about 2,000 capacity venues in Europe and like 500-600 in the US," frontman Murray Matravers explained, "but we had to cancel both of those tours because we couldn't make it work financially... we were going to be losing tens of thousands of pounds."
Think about that. A successful band with an established fanbase and international touring experience couldn't afford to play shows. As Murray said: "It's a pretty fucked-up situation for artists."
Kate Nash, who's flirted with the mainstream over the past two decades since her breakthrough hit "Foundations," put it even more starkly: "I'm Kate Nash and if I can't make it work then how is anyone underneath this level doing it?"
She's not exaggerating. Kate pays her crew fairly, puts on high-quality shows, and ends up in debt. If an artist at her level is struggling, what hope do emerging artists have?
The Touring Circuit is Collapsing
In 1994, touring bands could hit 28 different locations across the UK. By 2024, that number had shrunk to just 12 primary touring stops. Cities like Bath, Bedford, Cambridge, Hull, Leicester, Portsmouth, and York have been completely wiped off the touring map.
Sam Duckworth (Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly) remembers: "My first major tour was 54 dates. There's no way I could do a 54-date tour now. What it really means is that fans in certain parts of the country have now either got to travel long distances or hope to be the one non-major city on a tour."
Artists are now playing roughly 11 shows on average on the grassroots circuit, compared to 22 shows in 1994. That's half the opportunities to build a fanbase, half the income, and half the chances for fans outside major cities to discover new music.
The Promotional Black Hole
But here's the thing that doesn't get talked about enough: even when artists can afford to tour and venues are still standing, getting people through the door is harder than ever.
A recent musician survey found that 54% of respondents cited "getting music heard" as their most significant challenge. Two-thirds believe it's becoming harder to be an independent musician. The reasons are stark:
Oversaturation: Thousands of new tracks drop daily on streaming platforms
Algorithmic bias: Platforms prioritise acts with bigger budgets or existing followings
Discovery crisis: Finding gigs that match your taste is genuinely difficult
Think about the last time you tried to find a gig in your city. You probably opened Songkick or Bandsintown, scrolled past dozens of acts you've never heard of with vague genre tags, clicked through to find minimal information, then had to jump to Spotify to actually hear what they sound like, then back to find ticket prices (if they were even listed). By the time you've done all that, the moment's gone.
And that's assuming the gig was even listed online. Many free gigs and smaller shows simply don't appear on major platforms. If you're not in London, Manchester, or maybe Glasgow, good luck finding much at all.
A Hull venue owner summed it up: "It's the buzzy industry artists breaking through that we struggle with, and it's getting more and more prevalent."
The Industry Has Changed, But Not in Your Favour
Here's what really stings. Record labels used to fund tours as part of artist development. Not anymore.
Murray Matravers again: "Maybe 10 or 20 years ago you could have gone to a label and said, 'It's going to cost us £30,000 to do this tour' and they'd have said, 'That's a good use of money, we'll loan you it'. There's no way they'll loan you that for live shows now because that's not where the money is, it's all short-form video. If you said, 'I want £30,000 to shoot 1,000 TikTok videos' – you best believe they'll say yes."
The industry wants you to go viral, not build a sustainable career playing live shows. But virality is a lottery ticket, not a business model.
Even the Fans Are Struggling
It's not just artists and venues feeling the pinch. During the 2024 Christmas period, 49% of Brits restricted their visits to hospitality venues, with many preferring house parties instead. Small gig venues have been hit hardest, with attendance dropping dramatically for lesser-known acts.
This creates a vicious cycle: fans can't afford to take risks on unknown artists, so they stick to bigger names. Unknown artists can't build fanbases. Venues can't fill rooms. Everyone loses.
Why Scenebud Exists
This is exactly why we built Scenebud.
We're not naive enough to think a platform can solve all these problems. But we can make a meaningful dent in one crucial area: discovery and promotion.
Right now, promoting gigs as an independent artist or small venue means:
- Posting on multiple platforms with different formats
- Hoping your social media posts don't get buried by algorithms
- Competing with acts that have PR budgets bigger than your tour budget
- Watching potential fans scroll past because they can't easily hear your music or find basic info
Scenebud changes this. We're building a platform that:
Makes discovery actually work: Genre tags that mean something. Proper venue filtering. Regional focus so Sheffield and Dundee get the same love as London.
Puts everything in one place: Hear the music, see the show details, buy tickets. All without jumping between five different apps and websites.
Levels the playing field: Your gig gets promoted based on relevance to fans, not the size of your marketing budget or ability to game the algorithm.
Focuses on what matters: We're about live music. Actual gigs, real venues, genuine connections between artists and fans.
Think of us as Bandcamp for live shows. A place where independent artists can promote their gigs on their own terms, where fans can actually discover new music in their area, and where grassroots venues get the visibility they deserve.
The Stakes Are Real
The UK's grassroots music scene is worth saving. It's culturally valuable, economically vital and irreplaceable. As Kate Nash said: "If we lose the grassroots, we lose the birth, growth and development of future artists."
Every closed venue is lost potential. Every cancelled tour is a fanbase that never forms. Every undiscovered artist is a connection that never happens.
We can't fix the cost of living crisis, reverse Brexit touring complications, or force streaming platforms to pay fairly. But we can make it easier for artists to reach fans, for fans to discover artists, and for grassroots venues to fill rooms.
Because right now, talented artists are giving up. Vital venues are closing. And music fans are missing out on the bands they'd love if they could only find them.
That's not good enough. And it's why Scenebud exists.
Are you an artist, venue, or promoter struggling with these issues? Get in touch – we'd love to hear your story and get your shows on Scenebud.