Luton will play its part in the UK’s annual seven-day celebration of independent music and arts venues, with a rallying cry for gig lovers to support grassroots havens before it’s too late – or as Ben Barry of Luton’s Vandalism Begins at Home says: “It’s a classic case of ‘use it or lose it.’
The message comes as The Castle, a cornerstone of Luton’s live music scene, takes centre stage in Independent Venue Week 2025 (IVW) from Monday (January 27) with a week-long series of live music events.
Luton music collective and one of the regular promoters at the venue, Vandalism Begins at Home, takeover on Wednesday January 29 with a show headlined by rising indie pop stars Low Girl, a Steve Lamacq radio favourite on 6Music, who return to The Castle for the first time since 2023’s Castlefest.
Low Girl will be supported by The Framatics and Luton’s own The Looted Youth, who record a live session at The Castle last year.
Other nights see headliners The Lounge Society (Jan 27), Dirty Blonde and Lizzie Esau (30), Obeyer (31) and Sunday Club (February 1), play with a host of local and up-and-coming supports across the week from the likes of Owes, Ramona Marx, Dois Padres, Dirty Blonde Blame Ceasar and Matty Ram.
Barry’s clarion call resonates amid a sobering backdrop as grassroots music venues in the UK are closing at an alarming rate. According to the Music Venue Trust (MVT), 125 such venues shuttered in 2023 alone, leaving only 835 in operation.
The causes are manifold, from skyrocketing energy bills to rent increases averaging 37.5 per cent. These challenges are compounded by the ongoing economic fallout from the Covid pandemic.
“Independent Venue Week shines a light on the grassroots venues and artists that form the backbone of our music culture,” Barry says, urging Lutonians to support their growing local scene.
In recent years, The Castle has emerged as vital hub for live music and this is the second year that it has been a host venue for the national celebration of grassroots music hotspots.
And it comes as the town has already taken its first major steps in a cultural leap. Luton was the host for Radio 1’s Big Weekend festival last summer, an event which saw 100,000 music lovers descend on Stockwood Park to see the likes of emerging Luton rockers JW Paris – who are no strangers to the playing The Castle – to global megastars Coldplay. Lead singer Chris Martin even penned a specially written ode to Luton, called ‘Orange’.
The Big Weekend was also the first festival appearance of Luton singer-songwriter Myles Smith, who has this week been nominated for three Brit Awards after a blockbuster breakout 2024, sparked by his hit ‘Stargazing’, which saw him sell out shows in the UK and north America, where he’s currently back touring.
Looking ahead, construction is underway on the £136million The Stage regeneration project on the old Bute Street car park site, which includes a performance venue, while December saw the council grant outline planning permission for a 1,800-capacity music venue next to Luton Town Football Club’s new Power Court stadium, with the football HQ expected to open by 2027. That would by similar in capacity to London’s iconic Shepherd’s Bush Empire, which incidentally Myles Smith has already sold out for an appearance in a month’s time.
However, for artists to get to those heights, they rarely shoot straight to arenas, instead having to hone their craft at smaller venues. While Luton now has the likes of The Castle with a regular schedule of gigs, Smith has talked often about how, when he was starting out in music, he’d play shows in local pubs to the proverbial one man and his dog. Even then, the current regular local live music infrastructure was sadly lacking in the town, besides popular jazz and blues spot, The Bear Club, which was last year saved from closure by the football club.
Barry is one local advocate who warns that the viability of large-scale music venues in town in the future may depend on the survival and success of smaller venues today.
But with an ambitious plan for the next few years, Luton at least seems to be bucking the trend music venues closing, seen elsewhere in the UK. Indeed, in 2023 Vandalism Begins at Home even spearheaded a campaign against the development of bedsits in the then vacant commercial building next door to The Castle. The plan could have threatened its viability as a live music venue. The music collective and the venue won and the developers backed down.
The overall feeling then as it is now is that the closure of grassroots venues across not only stifles emerging talent but also jeopardises the entire music ecosystem. Without intimate spaces like The Castle nurturing local artists, there’s a risk that larger venues like the forthcoming Power Court music spot will struggle to sustain a vibrant programme of acts.
Examples from across the UK underline this point. For instance, the closure of The Cellar in Oxford in 2019 highlighted how even well-loved venues can falter under financial strain, cutting off vital opportunities for up-and-coming artists. And that’s in a city with a rich history of local acts making it big, like Britpop era heroes Supergrass, Radiohead and, before them, shoegaze legends Ride, to name but a few.
Luton’s is beginning to awake from its musical slumber, but for decades the town has lagged behind neighbours, like Bedford and St Albans, due to not having a dedicated music venue. It is perhaps just one compelling reason why it has taken 40 years since Paul Young for a chart-busting Lutonian to emerge and be nominated for a newcomer Brit Award that Smith is in line to scoop.
But the Big Weekend showed that there is an appetite for live music in Luton and the three-day extravaganza had the additional benefit of boosting the local economy to the tune of £7million.
Despite its challenges, grassroots venues remain a significant contributor to the UK music industry, which generated £8billion in 2023. Live music alone attracted 19.2 million fans, supporting 62,000 jobs — a 17 per cent increase from the previous year. Events like IVW not only celebrate these contributions but also galvanise community support, which is essential for their survival.
In a Facebook post, The Castle highlighted how crucial buying a gig ticket is, writing: “This is your time to support grassroots music – buying a ticket in advance means the venue directly receives 50 per cent of the booking fee to put towards programming for the rest of the year, and saves you money too! All tickets on the door will be at a higher price this year.”
For Luton, Independent Venue Week 2025 (from Monday January 27 to Friday February 1) offers a chance to rally behind The Castle and ensure it continues to emerge as a cultural beacon.
As Barry aptly concludes: “By supporting local venues today, we lay the foundation for a vibrant music scene that can inspire more musicians in Luton and the local area, who will ultimately be stars that can sustain larger venues in the future.”
You can buy tickets in advance for next week’s Independent Venue Week shows at: https://www.gigantic.com/uk/luton
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