THEY are the iconic small concert halls that contribute to “music tourism” worth around £334m for Scotland’s economy.

But they are at risk due to a combination of lack of investment, crippling business rates and rising costs.

Now the Music Venue Trust charity has revealed it is holding talks to try and get a percentage of the price of big concert tickets to put into a fund to help preserve iconic small music venues.

It is hoped the Pipeline Investment Fund will enable them not just to invest but buy the freehold of grassroots music venues so that they can be placed into protected ownership and permanently leased back to local communities.

MVT said they were initially seeking a percentage of the face value of ticket sold for the biggest concerts. The likes of Beyonce and Bruce Springsteen’s stadium gigs at Hampden, would be the kind of big events that could help the cause of grass roots music venues.

The Herald: beyonce at hampden park glasgow Daniela VescoParkwood EntertainmentAP Invision

Beverley Whitrick, strategic director of the MVT said the first of a series of meetings with stakeholders in the music industry was held a fortnight ago and there was a generally positive response.

“Taking venues out of market forces is the best way to protect them.

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“We are trying to get the money badly needed into the venues and safeguard mechanisms to ensure that money stays for music and musicians rather than disappear out in other ways.

“Even though we have said it is like the National Trust for music venues, we are not prioritising historic buildings. It is about sustaining a network of venues in key places around the country so that there continues to be grass roots music venues.”

Small venues are seen by the MVT as vital to the music industry, not just boosting local economies and entertaining the public, but helping to launch fledgling bands, and sustain existing ones.

Oasis famously were spotted and signed by Creation Records supremo Alan McGee after a gig at one of the world’s most famous small venues, King Tut’s Wah Wah Hut in Glasgow.

Ms Whitrick said they now have an ambitious target to start the fund to save venues in September. It would be administered by MVT which is planning to establish advisory boards from within the UK music industry to guide and oversee its investments.

“There will be a programme of strategically choosing venues over time to get involved in trying to secure them so that we have a map or a network across the UK,” said Ms Whitrick.

“A huge number of stakeholders in the live music industry say they can absolutely see the need for (a ticket price cut) and are in favour of discussing it and the challenge is to try and get a cross section of component parts of the live industry to get a solution. The will is there to try and find a solution.

“We just said our red line is only that it cannot come out of the artists’ cut. We don’t believe the artists should be paying this.”

The charity, whose patrons include Sir Paul McCartney and Scottish artists such as KT Tunstall and Be Charlotte is seeking the assistance of music fans across the UK to become venue champions in conducting a survey of the state of Britain’s concert halls.

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From April 29 to May 5 they will be used to gather information about the venues themselves, considered essential for the future health of the music industry in Britain, the artists who play there and the audiences who attend.

Venue Champions will work with venues and talk to gig goers and performers to create audits on how it operates.

It comes as 12,000 signed a petition to save the historic O2 ABC in Glasgow as a music venue, after plans were submitted to fully demolish the structure.

The building, which is actually older than the Mackintosh Building and during its 143-year-old history has been a diorama theatre, a circus, a dancehall and a cinema, was wrecked in the Glasgow School of Art blaze in June.

Research last year revealed that live music is now worth almost £80 million a year to Glasgow’s economy – as it emerged that growing numbers of venues across the country are under growing threat of closure. The Glasgow music scene supports around 2,450 jobs and has more than 240 different venues hosting live music events.

The Herald: Fire crews at the O2 ABC venue on Sauchiehall street after it was damaged caused by the fire that destroyed the Glasgow School of Art Mackintosh building in the early hours of Saturday morning. The GSA Charles Rennie Mackintosh building was in the process

The impact of property developments, complaints over noise disruption, and rising business rates were all cited in the Edinburgh University study.

It was estimated in 2015 that Edinburgh’s live music scene was worth around £40m to the city’s economy, with 2.7m attending 23,300 events a year.

MVT said they were also talking to government about supporting small venues through business rates cuts.

"If we can get the music industry to invest in itself, we hope government, which we are in robust discussions with, will support that with a number of policy changes which would ensure the money stays in the music venues and doesn't disappear through business rates," added Ms Whitrick.

"Around the table we have some of the biggest music companies in the UK like Live Nation and representative bodies such as the Concert Promoters Association.

"They are being asked to respond to the fact that in other countries in Europe there is a government tax that demands that the bigger gigs put money into smaller gigs. But we believe in the UK, rather than going to the government and saying they need to do this, it would be better if they do it themselves.

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"There is very much a danger that because the UK is run on market forces, any money that is invested into a venue, has the benefit of improving the value of the venue, therefore the business rates go up, the landlord says they will have more rent and that money goes to various people rather than being used to benefit the venue itself.

"We are constantly building our evidence base in order to persuade the music industry that they absolutely must invest in these venues now in order to safeguard them for the future "The venue champion is about helping us build more evidence about why this (fund) is needed to allow our venues to rival the small venues that we see across Europe. They get investment from government, they do get subsidies."