Ticketmaster is giving fans in the UK an option to donate directly to the country’s Music Venue Trust (MVT), coinciding with their sponsorship of the charity’s Venues Day this month.
The ticket-selling giant will introduce a point-of-sale charity upsell option beginning on Venues Day, October 17. The initiative will continue to run for a full month, with Ticketmaster matching the customer donations.
“This upsell provides a practical method for fans to support grassroots music venues, and we are incredibly grateful to the Ticketmaster team for putting it in place,” said Mark Davyd, MVT founder and CEO, in an interview with IQ.
“Ticketmaster matching all fan donations is a powerful message for the whole industry about the support our sector needs and the will of the music community to provide it,” he continued. “Ticketmaster has been a long-term and committed partner of MVT, and their core support has been vital in developing us as the authentic voice of grassroots venues, artists and fans.”
Founded in 2014, the Music Venue Trust supports more than 900 small venues across the UK, helping them to stay open in the midst of more than 100 grassroots venue closures over the past year.
According to MVT, independent UK venues are facing a “well-documented” crisis as a result of rising energy costs and increasingly expensive venue overhead like rent and staffing.
Just last month, MVT told NME that 67 independent venues have already closed in 2023 and the charity’s projections indicate that ten percent of the nation’s total grassroots venues will be gone by the new year.
Featured image from Pexels.com.
