Since lockdown, every Wednesday and Friday evening, at 8 pm London’s Green Note holds an online concert streamed to their website, YouTube channel and Facebook page. Virtually Green Note is no small challenge as the event is live and each bill features 3 artists playing ‘in the round’. There is a lovely intimacy to these events and the lineup is incredible. Although free to watch, a donation is asked for which is split between the artists performing and the venue.
Last night there were performances from Ida Wenøe, Samantha Whates and Matt The Electrician. This Friday, they have Martin Harley who was nominated as Acoustic Blues Artist of the year and Instrumentalist of the year at this year’s UK Blues Awards; European Blues Award winner and 3 times nominee in the current UK Blues Awards, Dom Martin from Belfast and The Lowest Pair whose latest album, The Perfect plan, we reviewed on Folk Radio last month.
On a more serious note, as mentioned in our recent post on the Music Venue Trust (MVT) #saveourvenues campaign there are still a large number of venues at risk.
Mark Davyd, founder and CEO of MVT said, “The fact we have managed to remove 140 grassroots music venues off of our critical list in the last three weeks is, of course, a cause for celebration but we are not complacent as this is only a relatively short-term fix. Whilst the immediate threat of closure for these venues has been halted they are still under real threat in the coming months as are over 400 others. This is a good start and we can’t emphasise how grateful we are to those music fans, music industry companies and public organisations who have supported the #saveourvenues campaign so far, but we cannot relax as we still have a mountain to climb to secure the long-term future of this sector. We still desperately need more music industry companies to step up and help with donations alongside real action from government specifically around rent relief, more financial help and clearer guidance.”
Immy & Risa of The Green Note sent a message out recently which I’ve copied below:
When the coronavirus crisis first hit and we closed our venue back in March, we launched an appeal via our mailing list asking for support. Many of you were so kind and generous in donating, and we are immensely grateful to you. The donations we received were a HUGE help enabling us to meet our more immediate financial commitments following our sudden loss of income, support our staff, and get our virtual gig series off the ground, providing us with a means to continue supporting artists during this time. However, since then it has become apparent that we will have to remain closed for a lot longer than we originally anticipated. Moreover, it is becoming increasingly clear that, even when lockdown is lifted, it will take quite some time for us to be able to open fully and operate at a level that will meet our monthly outgoings.
Therefore, we are now in a position of having to come up with longer-term strategies, if we are to survive these challenging circumstances. One step we are taking is joining together with the Music Venues Trust and their #SaveOurVenues campaign, to prevent the closure of hundreds of independent music venues. Green Note is part of this initiative, and we have just launched our crowdfunder campaign, which is encouraging artists and the public to help us raise funds to reach our total goal.
The focus of this initiative is to enable artists to support the venues they love by organising online shows to support our crowdfunder. Donations will be used to contribute to our running costs during this difficult time, but more importantly, it will allow us to invest in equipment so that once we are back at the venue, we can have a vibrant online streaming mechanism. This will help us generate income over the long term, also for the musicians who play at our venue, and hopefully, contribute to making our business more sustainable while it recovers from these huge and unexpected setbacks. Investing in live-streaming our gigs, will also allow us to continue to bring live music to some of our older/more vulnerable patrons, who may find it more challenging to continue to visit venues and other crowded places, even once restrictions are lifted.
We are already in talks with some Green Note artists and have some exciting things already in the pipeline, so do keep an eye on our social media for more information!
If you feel able to make a donation towards our crowdfunder, we would of course be very grateful. If you are not able to, or you have already donated to our previous appeal, we are still very grateful. We are aware that everyone’s situation is different and that many of you have also been impacted financially by all this. We’re just putting this out there, so that anyone who can and wishes to, can support this new campaign, either by donating themselves and/or by spreading the word.
If you are an artist – here’s how you can help!
The focus of the MVT #SaveOurVenues crowdfunder initiative, is providing a platform for artists to put on their own live-streamed gigs to raise funds for a venue of their choice. If Green Note means something to you, you have played there or have been and you would like to do a gig to support us, we would love you to do so!! You can find more details of how to go about setting this up, on the MVT website at this link (and if you are not an artist, but know of one who might want to get involved with supporting us in this way, please forward them this email!)
That’s all from us for today… but we wanted to thank you again for your continued support. Whether you are an artist, or a music-lover, Green Note wouldn’t be anything without you! So thanks for sticking with us through all this… we are determined to get through it and see you all out the other side!!!
Lots of love,
Immy & Risa xx
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/savegreennote