The line-up for Reading & Leeds would look very different this year if it weren’t for grassroots music venues.
As revealed in a concept poster shared by the Music Venue Trust, the festival would be missing virtually all of its 2024 artists – including headliners Liam Gallagher, Fred again.., Lana Del Rey, Catfish And The Bottlemen and Gerry Cinnamon – if it weren’t for their foundations in grassroots venues.
The reimagined poster highlights how many of today’s most successful artists came up by playing smaller music venues, which continue to face indefinite closure across the UK without urgent government action and investment.
“Today’s festival headliners can only sell thousands of tickets because of the essential role played by these venues in their development,” the MVT shared in a social media post today (Monday 25).
“Nurtured in grassroots music venues, they built their audiences from tens to hundreds, laying the foundation for their success on the grand stages of festivals like Reading & Leeds.”
Check out the bare line-up poster below.
The Reading & Leeds festival lineup poster, minus any artists who launched their careers in Grassroots Music Venues….
Posted by Music Venue Trust on Monday, March 25, 2024
Only artists like Reneé Rapp, who started in theatre, Digga D, who rose to prominence with freestyles, and Kenny Beats, who came from a production and industry background, would remain on the bill.
It’s not just the Reading & Leeds line-up that would lose most of its acts were it not for grassroots music venues. The MVT previously revealed that Glastonbury 2024 would also very much be lacking without the venues that supported the artists throughout their early careers.
A report earlier this year highlighted the “disaster” that struck the UK’s grassroots music venues in 2023, as the MVT warned that “we are losing the next generation of British talent because we can’t be bothered to get it right”.
It came after it was revealed that the UK was set to lose 10 per cent of its grassroots music venues in 2023, as calls continued for the “major leagues” of the music industry to step up.
Elsewhere, another telling report published last week revealed that, 30 years on since Oasis‘ debut UK tour, only six of the venues they played remain open today.
In other festival news, Festival Republic’s managing director Melvin Benn recently told NME about the launch of their new ReBalance initiative and his commitment to supporting emerging women and non-binary artists.
“It has been a man’s world,” Benn told NME. “Unfortunately things do take time to change, but unless people like me are willing to make the effort to assist that change, it will take longer for it to come.”
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