Musicians’ Movement open letter demands Government support for music sector freelancers

The Musicians’ Movement, which now has more than 16,000 members on its Facebook user group, has written an open letter to the Department of Digital, Media, Culture and Sport, and Arts Council’s of the UK’s devolved nations highlighting the urgent need for guaranteed support of freelance musicians during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. With thousands of musicians unable to perform live but also ineligible for grants, Musicians’ Movement (MM) Managing Director Phil Meadows says measures must now be put in place to stop vast numbers of musicians suffering extreme hardship.

Commenting on the dire situation freelancers face, Meadows said: ’The £1.57 billion announcement from the DCMS was a big deal for the UK arts sector. It promised to support the tens of thousands of people who work within the music industry, through some of the toughest times in recent history. Unfortunately, beyond the headline this simply is not the case. Instead, it’s being used to mothball cultural organisations, institutions and charities until April 2021. For the most part, it will fail to reach those who create and perform the music our nation loves and will be used to support the streamlining of our industry rather than to build a future for our live performers, sound engineers, lighting technicians, front of house staff and all the other brilliant people that make the performing world work. The £500m Arts Council England Cultural Recovery Fund is a prime example of this. We need to support the continuation of live music as we know it’.

Co-founded by award winning saxophonist Meadows and tuba player Chris Barrett, the Musicians’ Movement has been campaigning on this issue since March, in collaboration with the Music Venues Trust, helping to coordinate a previous open letter signed by 550 grass roots music venues to lobby for grants to prevent UK music venues from permanent closure due to the Covid-19 crisis. The Government’s £1.57 billion package far exceeded the hopes for a one-off payment of £50million for UK venues, but it’s the plight of the countless freelancers that is now of huge concern, with most in the industry fearing that a full return to live performances may not be possible until early 2021.

Among the proposals is a new grant scheme to enable live events to take place in line with the Covid-19 social distancing guidelines, covering the difference in income for tickets sales between 100 percent audience capacity and a reduced capacity, guaranteed minimum fee paid to each performer, fixed rate per ticket in line with a full pre-Covid venue capacity and more.

Click here to read the full letter online

And for more info visit www.musiciansmovement.co.uk