Live Music In England And Wales

MORI conducted a survey for the Live Music Forum, to establish just how much live music is performed in England and Wales, what issues affect the decision as to whether or not live music is staged, and what impact the new Licensing Act might have on live music performances.

Almost half (47%) of all venues have staged at least one live music event in the last 12 months. This varies quite considerably by venue type as the chart below illustrates.

A fifth (19%) of the venues stage live music regularly — at least twice a month. Around one in six of those that do put on live music, though, have only had one or two events in the last 12 months. Taking all venues into consideration (i.e. those that have and have not staged live music in the last 12 months), on average in the last 12 months each venue has had 12 live music events. This equates to around 1.7 million live music performances over the course of a year.

The principle reason for staging live music is customer demand. Over half (55%) say this is why they have live music in their venue, while other popular drivers are to increase custom and sales (34%) and profit (20%).

Technical details

MORI interviewed licensees (or those responsible for music provision) in 1,577 pubs & inns, restaurants & cafes, student unions, small clubs, members clubs & associations and church & community halls across England and Wales. This included a booster sample of 267 venues in Wales. The data have been weighted by venue type and region. All interviewing was conducted by telephone using CATI (Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing) between 18 June and 23 July 2004.