From pub to stadium: The ecology of public and commercial investment in British live music venues

现场音乐是英国文化领域更广泛问题的一个主要例证。从大型机构——管弦乐队、歌剧公司等——到基层，都感受到国家和地方公共财政的压力，因为直接资金因削减而枯竭。与此同时，自2008年以来，现场音乐的收入已经超过了唱片行业。大型活动在几小时内售罄，正如游说团体UK Music最近关于音乐旅游的报告所示，现场演出是英国重要的收入来源。然而，人们对这些好处的感受并不均衡，这不仅仅是国家资助的艺术和健康的商业部门所遭受的痛苦。媒体和行业对经济活动较低水平场馆命运的日益关注反映在对斗争和关闭的报道中。这也不仅仅是基于经济衰退。近年来，与音乐相关的关键立法——《2012年现场音乐法案》——解除了对在许可场所提供各种现场音乐的管制。但这是行业、草根和立法者长期努力的结果，源于2003年早期许可立法对场所和从业者的负面影响。要求更多放松管制的呼声也涉及到行业（英国音乐）和音乐家（音乐家联盟）的代表。陷入困境的不仅仅是音乐场所。如何支持文化的问题取决于如何评估它的价值——为了经济利益还是天生的社会价值——并与那些关于国家和私人投资与公共投资的作用的问题交叉。英国文化大臣玛丽亚•米勒（Maria Miller）和苏格兰文化大臣菲奥娜•希斯洛普（Fiona Hyslop）发表的反对言论，鲜明地说明了经济价值与内在价值之间的界限，并以此作为投资的理由。在更广泛的争论和围绕现场音乐的争论中，隐含着一种感觉，即活动规模上的不同点是相互依存的。今天的体育场表演开始于酒吧和当地热点，现在正在挣扎-换句话说，一种生态模式。同样，私营部门和公共部门的投入不是互不相干的，而是相互依存的。交通基础设施、敏感或严厉的地方许可制度、分区以及健康和安全政策都影响着当地的现场音乐生态，就像国家、市政当局或商业部门的直接投资一样。我们将通过在英国的三个案例研究地区——伦敦卡姆登区、利兹区和格拉斯哥区——的背景和实践来研究这种相互作用——资金生态。我们将与三个关键部门组织合作：音乐版权协会（PRS for Music）负责授权场馆使用版权作品，它将提供数据，使我们能够绘制出每个地区场馆的规模和类型。与英国音乐和音乐家联盟（MU）一起，我们将选择六类场地容量的案例研究：小型（200人以下）；中小(200 - 500);中等(500 - 2000);中大(2000 - 5000);大(5000 - 20000);非常大（20,000+）。与地方和国家政策制定者、理事会官员、区域MU代表和场地运营商的访谈，以及绘图练习，将显示监管、财务、所有权和管理结构如何在理论和实践中产生和反映文化价值概念。在投资和利益相关者活动的背景下，音乐场所的生态模式将扩大和加深我们对该行业的理解。它将解释公共和私人行为者在塑造音乐事业作为不同水平经济活动的相互依存系统进行的环境中的叙述。地方和国家监管的影响，以及各种形式的直接补贴和间接支持（或阻碍），以明显和隐蔽的方式体现出来。我们将阐明这一系统，为政策制定者、行业和从业者提供对现场音乐和文化活动的见解。

Live music is a prime illustration of wider issues in the UK's cultural sector. Pressure on the public purse, nationally and locally, is felt from larger institutions - orchestras, opera companies, etc.- to the grassroots as direct funding dries up due to cuts. Meanwhile, live music has overtaken recorded sector revenues since 2008. Major events sell-out in hours and, as lobbying group UK Music's recent report on music tourism shows, the live sector is a significant source of income for the nation. Yet the benefits are felt unevenly, and not simply as a matter of suffering state subsidised arts and a healthy commercial sector. Growing concern for the fate of venues at the lower level of the economic activity is reflected in media and industry reports of struggles and closure. Neither is this just recession based. The key piece of music related legislation in recent times - the Live Music Act 2012 - deregulated the provision of live music of all kinds in licensed premises. But it was the result of a long campaign by industry, grassroots and legislators that arose from the negative impact of earlier licensing legislation in 2003 on venues and practitioners. Calls for more deregulation also involve both industry (UK Music) and musicians' (the Musicians' Union) representatives.Neither are music venues alone in their predicament. Questions of how to support culture hinge on assessments of how to value it - for economic benefit or innate social worth - and intersect with those about the role of the state and private vs public investment. Opposing speeches by UK Culture Secretary Maria Miller and Scottish Culture Minister Fiona Hyslop have starkly illustrated the lines between economic and intrinsic values as cases for investment. Implicit in wider debates and those around live music is a sense that different points on the scale of activity are interdependent. Today's stadium acts started in the pubs and local hotspots that are now struggling - in other words, an ecological model. Again, private and public sector inputs are not discrete but interdependent. Transport infrastructure, sensitive or draconian local licensing regimes, zoning and health and safety policies all affect local live music ecologies just as do direct investment from state, municipality or commerce.We will shed light on such interactions - the funding ecology - by examining them in context and practice in three case-study localities across the UK - the London Borough of Camden, Leeds and Glasgow. We will work with three key sector groups: PRS for Music, who license venues' use of copyright compositions, will provide data allowing us to map the size and types of venue in each area. With UK Music and the Musicians' Union (MU), we will then select case studies of venue capacities in six categories: Small (Under 200 capacity); Small-Medium (200-500); Medium (500-2,000); Medium-Large (2,000-5,000); Large (5,000-20,000); Very Large (20,000+).Interviews with local and national policy makers, council officers, regional MU representatives, and venue operators will, along with the mapping exercise, show how the interplay of regulation, finance, ownership and management structures produce and reflect conceptions of cultural value in theory and in practice across the live music venue ecology.The ecological model of music venues in the context of investment and stakeholder activity will both broaden and sharpen our understanding of the sector. It will account for the narratives of public and private actors in shaping the environment in which musical careers proceed as an interdependent system of different levels of economic activity. The effects of local and national regulation, alongside various forms of direct subsidy and indirect support (or hindrance), are felt in ways both obvious and hidden. We will illuminate this system to provide insights into live music, and cultural activity at large, for policy makers, industry and practitioners alike.