One of Bristol's most loved grassroots music venues has received thousands of pounds in funding to help them create a second performance area. The Louisiana has received a grant of £4,855.28 from the charity Music Venue Trust to pay for speakers and a new mixing desk.
It was one of eleven grassroots venues across the country to receive funding of £40,000 in total used for a range of lighting, sound and associated equipment purchases, air conditioning units and building work. Other venues included Chats Palace in London and Retro in Manchester - The Louisiana, which is a Grade II-listed building, was the only venue in Bristol mentioned in this round of funding.
Speaking on the funding, the Bristol venue owner Mig Schillance said: “Running a venue, especially one that is over 200 years old, is very expensive. With running costs increasing daily, it means that we no longer have the funds to put aside for reinvestment into projects such as this.
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"The funding received means that we can fit a second stage in the bar area, and will now look to host more weekend events over two floors. This will mean an increase in the amount of artists we can book in to play."
Mig applied for the Pipeline Investment Fund, a major new funding initiative which provides grants of up to £5,000 for UK Grassroots Music Venues. Small-scale grant applications were invited to support small-scale projects and to supply staff and training. Earlier in the year, Mr Schillance told BristolLive that the venue would have to see how Brexit affected the venue in terms of staff shortages and he had only had ten days off in 2021 himself.
The Pipeline Investment Fund was established with the support of members of the Music Venues Alliance and was primarily funded by donations from ticket sales of MVT’s recent ‘Revive Live’ programme of gigs around the UK, which was a partnership with The National Lottery.
Mark Davyd, Founder and CEO of Music Venue Trust said: “ The Pipeline Investment Fund is proof of what a huge difference relatively small amounts of money can make to local Grassroots Music Venues. Music Venue Trust is investing this money directly into facilities for artists and for local music communities improving venues for everyone.
"We’d like to see every stadium and arena show in the country making a small contribution to this fund. Every headline artist should be able to know with confidence that when they reach the top of our industry the impact of their success ripples back to directly support the venues and communities where the launched their career. MVT has created the mechanism to make that possible, we need the music industry to come together and make it happen.”
MVT's fund prioritised support for organisations who may have been excluded from other available funding and was open to all venue operators and organisations that meet any of the three definitions of a Grassroots Music Space. Music Venue Trust is seeking further donations, particularly from the wider music industry, to maintain and expand the Pipeline Investment Fund and make it a permanent source of support for Grassroots Music Venues.
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