Music Venue Trust launch classic gig poster initiative to fundraise for UK's music venues
The Music Venue Trust have launched a new initiative selling reproduced posters from classic gigs to help fundraise for music venues across the UK that have been financially affected by the coronavirus outbreak.
The MVT launched the ‘Save Our Venues’ campaign last month with the aim of staving off the continued economic threat facing over 400 grassroots music venues throughout the UK — many of which are facing immediate closure or significant financial difficulties due to the lockdown.
This new initiative, ‘The Writing Is On The Wall’, sees the MVT teaming up with TCB Merchandise and live agent/promoter Neil O’Brien to raise further funds for the campaign to save the UK’s music venues by selling high-quality reproduced wall posters from classic gigs gone by.
A growing number of venues have put forward posters from memorable past gigs they’ve staged, including the Bristol venues The Trinity Centre (who have contributed a Robert Plant poster) and the Fleece. The latter is putting forward three posters advertising past gigs by The Killers, PJ Harvey and Jeff Buckley (which you can see below) at the venue for fans to buy.
A small number of the posters, which will be A3-sized and printed on premium heavyweight coated Matt Paper (producing high-resolution prints in photo quality), can currently be browsed over on the TCB Merchandise site before they go on sale on Monday (June 1).
Every venue involved in ‘The Writing Is On The Wall’ will receive 80% of the profits from their respective posters after VAT and costs. Each venue will also have the option to have a t-shirt design produced when sales of their reproduced posters breach 75% of the original run, as well as the opportunity to produce a second poster design of their choice.
Music Venue Trust founder and CEO Mark Davyd said of ‘The Writing Is On The Wall’: “Each venue has a unique heritage and many will have hosted legendary concerts and artists. Part of each venue’s unique heritage is their own posters, leaflets and advertising from those said concerts.
“There is now a way that each venue can benefit from this financially, with fans able to play their part in saving their venues by owning a limited edition piece of art memorabilia.”
Any UK music venues that wish to be included in the initiative should send artwork in PDF format to Guy Gillam at [email protected].
This week, a number of prominent figures from the live music industry in the UK have spoken out to demand more government clarity and support in order to help the sector survive following the coronavirus outbreak.