The Music Venue Trust has announced that 20 venues are still set to close due to the current COVID virus, with 6 more added after a number were saved from the ‘red list’.

The Music Venue Trust is a charity is tasked with the aim of the safe reopening of grassroots venues as well as the re-emergence of live music in the UK. Revealing their new plan in November called ‘The Traffic Light’ campaign, which served as an update on their victorious #SaveOurVenues campaign. The campaign was successful in saving 13 venues from the ‘red list’ including Four Horsemen in Bournemouth, Hootenanny in Inverness and Rossi Bar located in Brighton. New campaigns are following the next steps to bring live music back to the nation as safely and successfully as it can.

CEO of Music Venue Trust Mark Davyd has released this information, “The crisis is nearing its final lap but we need to make sure these venues finish the race. With the support of artists and audiences, we have fought our way through the last 11 months venue by venue, case by case, trying to make sure that venues can Reopen Every Venue Safely. These 6 newly highlighted venues need urgent help, and we still have 14 venues that were on the original Red list that we can’t yet guarantee will survive to bring live music back to our communities. We are completely determined that they will.”

The charity has released a new ‘red list’ which lists all the venues which are currently in danger of permeant closure, here visitors and supporters can donate funds to the venue of their choice, and the great thing is that if an individual venue has raised enough money for their safety the donation will go to other venues still on the ‘red list’. As well as the ability to donate to support the charity, The Music Venue Trust also sells merch to aid the cause.

Loved venues that are included in the list are Boom in Leeds, Spiritual Bar in London, and the warehouse club for electronic fans, Egg, located in Kings Cross. Included on the list is the legendary Islington venue The Lexington, opened under the current name in 2008, in October of last year the venue was put on the list to benefit from the Cultural Recovery Fund given by Arts Council England. The Venue is unfortunately still at risk of closure and is crowdfunding to survive post-COVID.

With the news on February 22nd from Boris Johnson, giving a road map to a sense of normality for our lives as well as a revival for music and live events, it is more important than ever that the grassroots venues are supported.

Click here to view the Red List and donate and click here to buy merch.