Some very worrying statistics for music venues across the country
Northern Ireland has produced Snow Patrol, Two Door Cinema Club, The Undertones, Ash, Stiff Little Fingers, Gary Moore, Van Morrison and more from a population roughly the size of Greater Manchester. Every one of them learned their craft in grassroots music venues (GMVs). Now those venues are facing a very challenging and uncertain future.
Music Venue Trust (MVT) presented its Annual Report 2025 at Stormont on April 14 at a reception hosted by Matthew O’Toole MLA, Sian Mulholland MLA and Robbie Butler MLA.
For the first time in MVT’s eleven-year history, the report includes a dedicated section on Northern Ireland’s grassroots music venues following a year of targeted sector development work supported by Belfast City Council – and what the data shows is stark.
Seventeen active, dedicated grassroots music venues delivered 22,464 artist performances across 3,705 events in 2025, drawing over 460,000 audience visits. Their contribution to the Northern Ireland economy was £11.85 million. Yet only half of those venues made a profit.
Employment in the sector fell by 21 per cent in a single year, from 667 workers to 525. And live music, the thing these venues exist to provide, cost the sector £1.63 million more than it earned.
Beverley Whitrick, COO of Music Venue Trust, said: “MVT is incredibly grateful for the ongoing support from the Culture Team at Belfast City Council for our work in Northern Ireland, and the belief in the importance of GMVs shown by our host MLAs. Their assistance means that we have now been able to represent the vital contribution grassroots music venues make to the music ecosystem in all four nations of the UK, with events in every parliament. It has always been important to us to speak on behalf of GMVs across the whole of the UK so we are delighted that partners have enabled us to gather data to highlight the challenges for these venues, and an opportunity to lay out MVT’s plan for sector development.”
Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy, a long-term MVT patron who attended the Stormont reception, listed some of the country’s most famous musical legends: “Phil Coulter, Snow Patrol, Two Door Cinema Club, The Undertones, Clodagh Rogers, Van Morrison, Ash, Brian Kennedy, Therapy?, Mama’s Boys, D:Ream, Dana, And So I Watch You From Afar, Stiff Little Fingers, Gary Moore, David Holmes, The Divine Comedy”.
Adding that “Northern Ireland’s contribution to popular music has been vastly disproportionate to its tiny population. Along with the rest of the arts we have done our bit to challenge stereotypes, offset negativity and promote this brilliant little place. It was only by performing in small music venues around the province that I, and the aforementioned list of artists, became any good at all. Without them the next generation of Northern Irish stars will be unnecessarily stymied. This is not a charity case. This is a canny investment in the future.”
Throughout 2025, MVT worked closely with GMVs across Northern Ireland, delivering meetings, training, advice and support to enable participation in its Annual Survey and strengthen representation of the region within the UK-wide report. As a result, the 2025 report provides the most comprehensive picture to date of Northern Ireland’s grassroots music infrastructure and the venues that sustain it.
These findings underline both the cultural and economic importance of Northern Ireland’s grassroots music venues, and the urgent need for continued support to ensure their long-term sustainability.
Following the reception, which brought together venue operators, artists – including Hannon and Ciaran Lavery – policymakers and industry stakeholders, a Northern Ireland Venues Meeting took place at the Oh Yeah Music Centre in Belfast, focused on planning the next phase of development for the region’s grassroots music ecosystem.
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