“Large swathes of the country are missing out on seeing artists”: New figures suggest much of the UK is becoming a ‘touring desert’

New figures from the Music Venue Trust reveal that increasingly bands are skipping towns and cities on tours and the touring circuit is getting smaller as a result. According to the industry body, artists are playing just 11 shows on an average tour on the grassroots circuit this year, compared with 22 in 1994.

The stats are backed up by industry stakeholders, promoters and artists alike. Sam Duckworth, who is probably best known as Noughties singer songwriter Get Cape Wear Cape Fly, works for the MVT and described the situation as a “spiralling crisis” for all but the biggest artists and promoters.

Talking at the Beyond The Music conference in Manchester last week, Duckworth said: "My first major tour was 54 dates. There's no way I could do a 54-date tour now.”

"What it really means is that fans in certain parts of the country have now either got to travel long distances or hope to be the one non-major city on a tour. So not only are we seeing a crisis in economics, we're also seeing a crisis of access. There are vast swathes of the country where your only option is to travel an hour and a half. Then you factor in that the cost of everything has gone up. The train tickets have gone up. The ticket prices have gone up. The cost of your life has gone up."

The MVT has revealed that its members usually expect to sell 20 million gig tickets per year, but this year that figure is expected to drop to 15 million. It’s a sign that aside from the top end – Taylor Swift, Oasis etc– everyone is the industry is struggling.

Jon Collins, Chief Executive of the live music trade body Live said: "We hear tales of international artists skipping the UK or saying, I'll play London because it's London, but instead of doing six shows in the UK, I’m going to do two.”

"When it comes to programming tours, you're thinking, does it make sense to play Manchester? Does it make sense to play Birmingham? If I do those two, does it make sense to play Leeds and Liverpool, or are they just too close and actually we're just going to have to get fans to commute across? The risk is that we end up with a truncated touring route, which becomes a spine of the country - London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow - and then large swathes of the country are missing out on seeing those artists."

So what can be done? Collins suggests cutting VAT on gig tickets from its current rate of 20% to below 10%, which is where it stands in France, Germany and Italy. The MVT called on a £1 levy on all stadium gig tickets to go to small venues. Earlier this year, a House of Commons select committee said that if the music industry could not reach a voluntary agreement to introduce such a subsidy by September, the government would make it a legal requirement.

That deadline has now passed. The ball now resides very much in the government’s court.