Article for the leaflet.

 Live music in Covid-19: A struggling industry

When the Covid-19 crisis struck in March 2020 many UK music venues had to shut immediately and musicians could not perform. Social distancing meant that many musicians instantly lost their income. Most musicians in the UK are freelance, which means they are self-employed and only get paid if they work. Most musicians earned less than £20,000 per year, but these low paid workers contribute £5.2bn to the UK economy every year in an industry that employs nearly 200,000 people. How were these low paid workers going to survive this crisis?

The government put schemes in place to help working people over the crisis, but due to strict criteria many musicians did not qualify for financial support. A Musicians Union survey revealed that 88% of musicians did not think the government has done enough to support the industry during the pandemic and 33% were considering leaving the profession because lack of earnings. Almost half have already found work outside their industry. Even though the government were saying that they understood the problem, funds were still not reaching freelance musicians. In August, after the government were told that many grass roots venues were about to become bankrupt so they diverted £3.36 million to small venues, but it was too late for some. For those venues that do survive this crisis, by the time they are able to open for business there may not be enough musicians to actually perform because Chancellor Rishi Sunak was telling musicians they should go and find other jobs. “Musicians are working in supermarkets, being Deliveroo drivers, going back to things they trained for early in life,” Horace Trubridge, the Musicians union general secretary, told the Guardian.

By October 2020, so many jobs had been lost that musicians knew they had to do something to highlight their problem to the government. Many musicians became activists and started protests outside parliament, at the same time funding websites began appearing asking for donations to help musicians survive the crisis (Let The Music Play, Let Music Live, Help the Musicians). In early October, 400 freelance musicians played outside Parliament by performing live orchestral music before holding a two-minute silence to put pressure on the government to give more support to self-employed musicians. Other protests took place at the same time in other parts of the country. High profile musicians, such as Violinists Nicola Benedetti and the organiser of Glastonbury, Emily Eavis, attended the event. The protests were splashed over the media. As a result, these protests began to have an effect. In a survey in November 99% people said they thought musicians have found lockdown difficult, 98% thought musicians were right to protest. 82% said they would be willing to donate small sums of money to help musicians over this crisis. Financial support, wherever it comes form will help, but better planning for the future is needed as Nicola Benedetti said "This is not just about saying we want hand-outs, it's about everybody talking and finding a way out of this that is safe, but that looks to preserve music and performance long-term.”

But whatever happens musicians and the music industry needs the support of the public NOW! If we don’t many jobs will be lost and Britain will lose its reputation as a world leader in culture, music, and the arts. We will also lose something we all enjoy; live music! You can help through donating through Live Support.