Thank you for having me @BBCSounds !https://t.co/xvLCh0CqoK pic.twitter.com/l2Mm9CgVQ8

— Kelly Lee Owens (@kellyleeowens) February 21, 2025

Grimshaw started off the important conversation, remarking, “What’s worrying is that you’re getting all these great stats that [the industry is] growing…but then you’re also hearing of clubs closing.” He continues: “So, it’s interesting that it is growing, but then the venues aren’t there or the smaller venues aren’t there.” 

Owens agreed, noting that while the threat to well-known venues such as Fabric serves as a “wake-up call,” it’s the “smaller venues” that often go unnoticed and are overlooked when they vanish. 

The ‘Love You Got’ singer reflected on her new-found working relationship with Depeche Mode (for whom she joined as the support act for their 2023 ‘Memento Mori’ world tour), and how they have influenced her stance. “I always think of Depeche Mode, they were on the tube with their synths coming to these small venues,” she voiced. “I always think like without small venues, you wouldn’t have Depeche Mode, which is a world like not really worth living in!” 

In an ending statement, Owens concluded: “So I think there’s a responsibility when it comes to everyone – from the booking agents to ticketing companies – they need to be investing back into these venues so that the up-and-coming people have a place to be. It’s ultimately like a symbiotic relationship and we need to start viewing it in that way.” 

Elsewhere, Michael Kill, CEO of the Night Time Industries Association, contributed to the topic, warming, “We are witnessing the systematic dismantling of the night-time economy. Our industry is not just about entertainment; it’s about identity, community, and the economy. Losing our clubs means losing jobs, cultures, and a vital part of the UK’s social fabric.” Without immediate intervention, he made claim that the UK nightclubbing scene by then end of the decade. 

Kelly Lee Owens owes much of her rise to prominence to small venues that are reportedly on the verge of disappearing; born in North Wales, the 36-year old former auxiliary nurse began her career in music in 2009, showcasing her ‘techno pop’ style across London’s iconic grassroots venues. Owens released her eponymous debut album in 2017, and has since gone onto collaborate with other female artists at the forefront of the alternative scene, including St. Vincent and Björk. Recently, she launched her fourth studio album ‘Dreamstate’ in 2024 and is set to embark on her European tour from March 3, hitting locations such as Manchester, Glasgow, Leeds, Cardiff, Bristol and London.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kelly Lee Owens (@kellyleeowens)

Listen to the latest episode of Sidetracked with Annie and Nick, featuring Kelly Lee Owens here. 

The lack of new restrictions was in part due to the pressure from the hospitality industry to let venues and nightclubs remain open on New Year’s Eve, with Michael Kill, the Chief Executive of the Night-Time Industries Association (NTIA) writing an open letter to Johnson, urging him not to shut down the industry on its typically busiest night.“Let’s not end this year as we did last. End the uncertainty and Let Us Dance on New Year’s Eve,” said the letter, which you can read here.

In the other countries in the UK things are different though as before Christmas, Wales reintroduced its rule of six in pubs, cinemas and restaurants. Large events were also banned, with no more than 30 people allowed at an indoor event and 50 at an outdoor event. The Welsh government also shut down nightclubs and ordered pubs to impose 1-meter social distancing.

Also more recently looking over to Scotland on Boxing Day a limit was imposed on the size of public events including its traditional Hogmanay celebrations. At the moment indoor events are limited to 100 guests standing or 200 seated, with only 500 set to be allowed at outdoor events. Nightclubs were also forced to close from 27 December, while pubs and bars returned to table service only.

However, as there are no travel bans between the countries, some people are expecting there will be an “invasion” of Scottish and Welsh Partygoers. Some reports also suggest hotels in English border towns like Chester, Bristol, Carlisle and Newcastle are already fully booked on New Year’s Eve.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast, Scotland’s Deputy First Minister John Swinney said that crossing the English border would go against the “spirit” of the restrictions, and he would “discourage” anyone from doing so. “I think it is the wrong course of action for people to take because we have a serious situation we have got to manage and we encourage everybody to play their part in addressing that,”

Nick Newman, the chair of the Cardiff Licensees Forum, told The Guardian that there is probably a likelihood of a large number of revelers going from Wales to England so as to avoid the restrictions. He said “It’s 40 minutes from Newport to Bristol and it’s easy to get from North Wales into Manchester or Liverpool, English businesses are going to benefit. We’re hugely disappointed with the stance the Welsh government is taking, especially not presenting the evidence that links the virus to the hospitality industry.”

In addition to this, it would seem like some experts feel the restrictions won’t even help much anyway. University of Brighton virologist, Dr. Sarah Pitt, said the opposing measures across the nations did not make sense and would be unlikely to stop the virus from spreading.

Nightclubs in Scotland are to close for at least three weeks from 27 December https://t.co/K99UtEcOGJ

— BBC Scotland News (@BBCScotlandNews) December 23, 2021

Public Health Scotland announced yesterday that there were 22,000 estimated cases of the Omicron variant as of December 19^th, spurring on the decision to close nightclubs. It was originally intended for nightclubs to enforce 1 metre social distancing, however with the rapidly climbing case numbers, it seems wise to enforce temporary closures.

Deputy First Minister John Swinney has stated, according to BBC News, that financial aid will be made available in order to keep nightclubs afloat during this time, and that they will have the option to stay open providing they cancel their typical proceedings and effectively operate as bars with physical distancing. Swinney said: “We consider that closure in regulations, combined with financial support, may reduce losses and help these businesses weather what we hope will be a short period until they are able to operate normally again.”

Despite the promise of funding to supplement the inevitable financial losses that these venues will incur, there has been much concern how this will set back nightclubs and music venues. The Scottish Conservatives said that the decision to close was “a further setback to a sector already on its knees”.

Gavin Stevenson, the vice-chair of the Nighttime Industries Association, said according to an article from The Herald: “Nightclubs just fundamentally are designed to be large capacity premises and unfortunately they need to have those numbers in to trade viably so we suspect the majority will now choose to close and take advantage of the closure grants.” He also said that nightclubs were already in a “very precarious financial position.”

In Scotland, nightclubs were only re-opened on the 9^th of August, having been completely shut since March 2020.

Presently, no such restrictions have been enforced in England, however nightclubs and any venues with a capacity of more than 10,000 people are required to check the COVID status of any patrons over the age of 18. According to BBC News, The Nighttime Industries Assocation chief executive Michael Kill stated that “Vaccine passports will have a devastating impact on a sector already so bruised by the pandemic…The mixed public health messages this week that have been coming out of the government have arrived at the worst possible time – the pre-Christmas period is absolutely crucial for our sector. And now it is announced damaging vaccine passports are to be implemented.” The rules were put in place on the 15^th of December.

Following this news, many nightclub and venue owners say they are on the “brink of collapse” and that the introduction will lower their numbers even further over the Christmas period, posing “a threat to the very survival of thousands of businesses and jobs”. A recent study revealed that up to 40% of punters aren’t actually showing up to shows they’ve bought tickets to.

This paired with the fact fewer people are buying fewer tickets anyway is causing some major issues for the entire live music industry. Beverley Whitrick, Strategic Director of MVT (Music Venue Trust) states, “A ‘no show’ isn’t just lost ticket income, it’s lost bar take and excess staff costs” adding, “Rapid declines in attendance at this time of year represent an exponential threat to the whole sector, and losses of this magnitude cannot be sustained without throwing hundreds of music venues into crisis mode and at risk of permanent closure.”

 “It’s now the proportionate and responsible thing to move to Plan B in England while continuing to work closely with our colleagues in the devolved administrations so we can slow the spread of the virus,” addressed Boris Johnson to the nation last week. MVT CEO Mark Davyd argued in response, “confusing government messaging had created a ‘stealth lockdown’ with venues apparently able to open but in reality, haemorrhaging money at a rate that will inevitably result in permanent closures unless the government acts quickly to prevent it.”.

 The MVT is also backing the “Revive Live Tour” headlined by Bastille, Becky Hill, and The Coral with the objective to raise money for the industry by associating with the National Lottery. See here for details.

Looking for the perfect gift this Christmas? Grab a buy-one-get-one-free ticket to The National Lottery’s #ReviveLive Tour and give the gift of an experience with some amazing artists this January at grassroots music venues!
https://t.co/wU6Yk8PE9K pic.twitter.com/yulsSoiuh1

— Music Venue Trust (@musicvenuetrust) December 14, 2021

In order to help nightlife survive, the NTIA (Night Time Industry Association, another industry acting as a union for the issue) are calling for a VAT for the sector at 12.5 per cent, additional grants unique to hospitality, and for the government to reinstate furlough for the first quarter of 2022. NTIA CEO, Michael Kill, claims, “Without this, the result is a threat to the very survival of thousands of businesses and jobs.”

Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Micheál Martin announced in a televised address on Friday night that a number of new restrictions were coming into place in order to fight the new Omicron variant. These include restricting indoor events to a 50% capacity, applying to sports games and concerts, as well as limiting private home visits to no more than four households.

These rules are temporary, coming into place from the 7th of December until the 9th of January, completely covering the Christmas period. Martin said that the “risks associated with proceeding into the Christmas period without some restrictions to reduce the volume of personal contacts is just too high.” 

The move is especially frustrating as it was only on the 22nd of October, less than seven weeks ago, that nightclubs in Ireland reopened. Another restriction to Irish nightclubs also came into play on the 17th of November that imposed a midnight curfew in Ireland, effectively closing nightclubs that typically only allow entry after 11pm, in a story covered here on mxdwn last month. Irish clubs had less than a month of regular operation before being hit by Covid restrictions once more.

These new restrictions, however, are not arbitrary, as they are necessary in the fight against the new Omicron variant. More data is coming out about the new variant by the day, but the first real world data is showing that the Omicron variant may evade some of our immunity, weakening the effectiveness of vaccines, as reported by The BBC. Since nightclubs pose the risk of superspreader events, they will be the first against the wall.

Martin acknowledged the impact that this news has on the hospitality and entertainment sectors, that “many of them will be fearing for their livelihoods”, but he was quick to reassure: “The government will stand by them and ensure that they have the financial supports necessary to weather this latest storm and to stay intact until we are out of it.”

The full list of restrictions is available on the Irish government website here.

Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show Javid told BBC News. “I’m pleased to say we will not be going ahead, we shouldn’t be doing things for the sake of it. I’ve never liked the idea of saying to people you must show your papers or something to do what is just an everyday activity, but we were right to properly look at it. We’ve looked at it properly and, whilst we should keep it in reserve as a potential option, I’m pleased to say that we will not be going ahead with plans for vaccine passports.”

If the scheme was to go ahead, members of the public would have been required to show proof that they had received two doses of a coronavirus vaccine in order to gain entry to any clubs and other crowded events. It would seem most are in support of this change of plans.

Leader of the Liberal Democrats Sir Ed Davey described the plan as “divisive, unworkable and expensive,” and said that his party would have opposed them had they gone ahead. Labour had also criticised the plans as “unworkable”.

The Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) said the plans could have crippled the industry and might have seen nightclubs face discrimination cases. The CEO Michael Kill commenting on the new development stated: “Following an intense political and public campaign by the NTIA, its members and wider industry supporters, we welcome the comments from the health secretary this morning regarding the government’s decision to scrap the planned mandate of COVID passports from the end of September.”

He continued “We hope that businesses will now be able to plan for the future with some degree of certainty, regain confidence from customers and the workforce and start to rebuild a sector that has consistently been at the sharp end of this pandemic.”

Mark Davyd, the CEO of Music Venue Trust, which represents hundreds of grassroots music venues throughout the UK, also shared a statement on the government’s scrapping the vaccine passport scheme.

“The double vaccine certification programme proposed by the government contained a number of challenges around deliverability, practicality, equality and potential discrimination,” Davyd said. “MVT has been describing those problems to Ministers and departments for the last two months, and we therefore welcome the decision to not move forward with this policy.

Davyd concluded his statement that despite not having to need for a vaccine passport “everyone in the live music community to please take a test before attending an event, a personal approach to risk mitigation that is highly effective and makes a real difference to the safety of gigs”.

However, despite the change of heart, the Scottish government announced on Friday (September 10) that from October 1 it will bring in a vaccine passport. Also in Wales, ministers will decide this week if vaccine passports should be used to gain entry to some events.

Clubs and venues are being cautiously reopened in other parts of the world. Gov. of New York Andrew Cuomo announced that: ”Beginning April 2, so-called events, arts and entertainment venues can reopen at 33% capacity, with up to 100 people indoors and 200 outdoors”. 

Following up the Government Roadmap announcement, Fabric shared on twitter: “As the world unlocks from the covid restrictions we are looking forward to welcoming artists and clubbers back at EC1 with a weekend-long celebration. We are also announcing the following 3 weekends as part of our reopening”.

As the world unlocks from the covid restrictions we are looking forward to welcoming artists and clubbers back at EC1 with a weekend-long celebration. We are also announcing the following 3 weekends as part of our reopening. Tickets here – https://t.co/RjlGxjCVCJ pic.twitter.com/paiYCP2FnK

— fabriclondon (@fabriclondon) March 4, 2021

The London nightclub is one of the first to announce opening after lockdown. It will reopen on 25th June Friday from 10pm -10am and Saturday running from 10pm till 4am the following Monday. The club also runs Fabriclive events in July. Tickets are available here.

Meanwhile Fabric shared on their page series of music streams from best London locations called: London Unlocked. Streaming will start on 14th March every Sunday and lasts seven weeks.

fabric Presents: London Unlocked. A series of streams from London’s most iconic spaces, with the UK’s leading electronic artists. Find out more at https://t.co/UXNLui5sAz #londonunlocked #nevernotmakingnoise pic.twitter.com/yKHeznxcog

— fabriclondon (@fabriclondon) March 9, 2021

Fabric Club first opened on 21st October 1999 and “it was conceived by people that go to clubs, for people that go to clubs”.  The club has three separate rooms. Fabric’s founding residents are Craig Richards and Terry Francis, who have played there since the club’s opening.