A new survey published by the Musicians’ Union (MU) has found that 34% of British musicians are thinking about giving up their music career thanks to the impacts of COVID-19 on the music and events industry.
A total of 2,000 union members were surveyed and the results are worrying.
Nine in 10 respondents (88%) believe the government has not done enough for the music industry throughout the pandemic. The lack of support has meant there are hundreds of thousands of people left in limbo.
Eighty-seven percent of those who were covered by the furlough scheme have also said they’ll experience financial problems once it ends. And as the scheme is due to wind up in October, the industry is in need of emergency action.
Musicians’ Union
Currently, moral is low within the music community.
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It isn’t just musicians feeling the strain but all the venues, festivals and people behind the scenes that make our favourite events happen, too.
Many people are still out of work and without hope of things changing soon.
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So, it’s no wonder some are considering packing it all in and turning to other careers.
Reports have suggested that people have been forced to seek out additional work as delivery drivers or supermarket assistants in order to make ends meet.
The O2 Ritz is unable to open. Image: The Manc Audio
Commenting on the findings, Horace Trubridge, General Secretary of the MU, said: “These figures are devastating and show how many musicians are struggling financially and at real risk of leaving music for good.
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“In better times, our members drive a £5bn music industry with their talent. One artist’s gig will create a domino effect of jobs – from lighting technicians to ticket sellers. If one musician is out of work, you can be sure many others will be affected too.
“We appreciate all the Government has done to support our members through the furlough and self-employment income support schemes so far, but they must not abandon musicians now. With social distancing measures still in place, venues can only sell at around 30% of usual capacity.
“We are calling on the Government to implement a seat-matching scheme, which would take venues’ potential revenue to 60%, providing a lifeline to musicians and the wider industry.
“Getting musicians back to work is the priority. However, this is simply not realistic for so many of our members while social distancing remains in place. We strongly urge the Government to recognise the unique situation that our members are in and to provide sector specific financial support for musicians.”
Image: Diego Sulivan/Unplash
These findings arrive before even more restrictions were announced by Boris Johnson last night.
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The rules particularly affecting the music industry include the 10pm curfew, table service only and the “rule of six”. It’s believed that implementing these will make putting on events impossible, killing the industry further.
Sacha Lord, Night Time Economy advisor for Greater Manchester, has widely shared his views on the matter. On hearing the announcements yesterday, he called for more support from Rishi Sunak. He tweeted:
Without extending support, this Government will be remembered for ripping the heart out of our 5th biggest UK sector.
Huge redundancies and mass closures of theatres, live music venues, pubs, bar, restaurants, nightclubs and cultural organisations.@RishiSunak it's over to you:
The Warehouse Project and Parklife boss has warned that three out of five Manchester venues and night-time businesses could close for good without extra help.
Members of the industry have taken matters into their own hands in recent months.
In August, PLASA – the organisation behind the #WeMakeEvents campaign – held a march in Manchester where 100,000 industry members walked through the city in silent protest.
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The march called for financial help for the music industry through grants and the consideration of extending the furlough scheme until it was safe to return to work.
#WeMakeEvents Campain – PLASA
Another peaceful #WeMakeEvents demonstration outside Parliament is planned for September 29.
They hope to raise awareness of the unemployment risk, as thousands are at risk of losing their livelihood as a result of current restrictions.
Organisers are urging people to arrive masked up, remain socially distanced and sign in to Track and Trace to make sure the demonstration adheres to Covid-19 guidelines.
Manchester without music is a worrying prospect.
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Posters around Manchester city centre spark serious rumours Charli XCX is set to headline Parklife 2025
Danny Jones
Some pretty big, green posters are popping up around town and, not to get ahead of ourselves, but it looks like they’re hinting at Charli XCX headlining Parklife 2025…
Feel free to lose your bratting minds.
A number of tall, let’s call it ‘apple’ green posters have been sighted in various places across Manchester city centre this Friday, 22 November and the last time we saw this slightly low-resolution, plain black Arial font and colour combo we got a reworked version of Charli XCX’s brat album.
Listen, all we can tell you is that this is almost exactly the same marketing and the letters on the poster simply read, “PL25”. Come on… you do the math(s).
Spotting at least two of the posters for ourselves around both Newton and Thomas Street in and around the Northern Quarter, plenty of people have been double-taking at the simple but bold and undeniably eye-catching portrait posters.
Trust us, we weren’t the only ones stopping to take a picture and frantically send them to half of our phonebook either.
Charli herself hasn’t given us any other clues on social media thus far – to be fair, this one feels fairly obvious to us – but it’s well worth keeping your eyes peeled on her stories as she did plenty of teasing before dropping Brat and it’s completely different but also still brat.
Still can’t get over that actually being the title, by the way.
It’s also worth noting that Parklife themselves recently confirmed that festival fans can expect to find out their headliners and the full 2025 lineup very soon. Check out that colour…
Oh, who are we kidding? That’s not apple green it’s straight-up BRAT green, b*tch. We’re fully getting carried away and you’ll just have to deal with it.
Even if it somehow turns out she’s not headlining it’s certainly looking like she’s going to be there and it wouldn’t be the first time.
Better yet, fans of the pop sensation won’t have to wait too long to see her right here in Greater Manchester because Charli is bringing her already smash-hit tour to Co-op Live next Wednesday, 27 November and in case you couldn’t tell by all the shouting in capitals, we’re very excited.
Roll on ‘PL25’. Other than Charli XCX, who else would you like to see as your Parklife headliners next summer?
Bez and Shaun Ryder are starring in a new gangster movie – nope, not kidding
Danny Jones
No, you didn’t misread the headline and you’re not on acid: Manchester music legends Bez and Shaun Ryder are set to feature in a brand-new gangster film.
Yes, the ones from the Happy Mondays – why are you having such trouble processing this?
Seriously though, we did a little double-take ourselves when we came across this news, but the familiar Manc faces look to be among the ensemble of a brand-new gangster movie by Irish writer, actor, producer and filmmaker, Ciaron Davies.
And this is just a little leak or rumour that may have been blown out of proportion: you can take it from the horse’s mouth as Happy Mondays frontman, Ryder, recently shared the news on social media.
As you can see, the new film is called Geezers and is billed as a “British crime caper” written and directed by Davies, featuring Shaun as hard-man Robbie and Bez as ‘Monk’. If you saw Ryder shaking off that snake biting his hand like it was nothing then you already know he’s hard as nails.
Although it’s not strictly listed as a comedy per se, ‘caper’ would suggest plenty of humour and light-heartedness, so we’re thinking more like The Gentleman, Italian Job, or maybe even Four Lions, rather than a serious crime thriller.
Now, while we’ve seen both of the Salfordians on screen before not only in the likes of music videos, interviews, panel shows and even as two of the funniest guests to ever go on Celebrity Gogglebox, this latest venture will serve as their respective acting debuts.
According to the IMDb page, the synopsis of the film is as follows: “Crime caper about a stolen bag of money. Caught in the crossfire are ‘The Geezers’ a bunch of wannabe criminals who have bitten off more than they can chew. With 24 hours to grab the cash, London may just go up in smoke tonight.”
Shame it’s not set on the mean streets of Manchester, or better yet Salford, but you’ve still very much caught our interest.
You can see the first promotional poster for the film down below.
As for Davies, he has been involved with a number of small-budget TV film projects, as well as appearing in shorts and even video games, so it’s fair to say that getting 62-year-old Ryder and his ever-energetic hype man, 60, involved is quite the coup for his movie-making career.
Although the film has no release date just yet, we know that filming locations having included parts of Warrington and Pinewood Studios, will be produced by Loose Gripp Films and distributed by publishers High Fliers.
Given the high-octane nature of Geezers and its genre, the feature will involve lots of action, stunts, violence and even martial arts – though how much kung-fu these two will have learned for the project remains to be seen…
All we know is that the film is supposedly “coming soon” and if you don’t want to see Bez and Shaun Ryder doing their best impression of a Guy Ritchie gangster movie then you’re lying to yourself. Praying for a Rowetta cameo to put the cherry on top.
Hannah Starkie -
23rd September 2020 
