Member's statement: Music Venue Trust Annual Report 2025
Member's statement by Ms Sian Mulholland on .
- MLA
- Ms Sian Mulholland
- Party at the time
- Alliance Party
- Date
- 14 April 2026
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Music Venue Trust Annual Report 2025
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5481999
Read the official Assembly record
Text
I welcome the publication of the Music Venue Trust annual report for 2025, which gives us, for the first time, a detailed and sobering picture of the state of grassroots music venues in Northern Ireland. We should be immensely proud of the sector. For a population of just under two million people, we have produced globally recognised artists across multiple generations. Every one of those artists started out somewhere, however. They started out in small local venues, learning their craft, building their confidence and connecting with audiences. Such venues are not just cultural spaces. As someone who volunteered for a decade before being employed by one such music venue, I know that they are economic contributors, community hubs and pipelines for future success. In 2025, just 17 grassroots music venues hosted over 22,000 performances across more than 3,700 events, attracting 460,000 visitors. That is an extraordinary amount of activity for such a small number of venues, and it translated into an £11·85 million contribution to our economy. Behind those headline figures, however, lies a far more fragile reality. Only half those venues made a profit. Employment in the sector has dropped sharply, down 21% in just one year. Perhaps most striking of all, live music is now operating at a loss, with venues subsidising performances to the tune of £1·63 million simply to keep music on their stages. That means that, although cultural output is thriving, the business model that underpins live music is under severe strain. That matters, because, without intervention, we risk losing the very spaces that nurture our artists, animate our towns and cities and enrich our communities. We also risk losing opportunities, particularly for young people, to participate in music, be that as performers, workers or audience members. The report, which is being launched in the Long Gallery today, shows clearly that grassroots venues are not just nice to have. Rather, they are essential infrastructure in our cultural and creative economy, and, like any infrastructure, support, strategic thinking and long-term planning are required. The question therefore for us as policymakers, and for the Minister for Communities and the Minister for the Economy, is this: what do we do next? How do we ensure that venues are sustainable? How do we recognise their value, not just culturally but economically? If we get it right, the cultural, social and economic returns will speak for themselves.
397 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
Assessment
Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.
- Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.03 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
- None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
- Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.89).
- No identity-based framing was identified (1.00).
- Subject area: Sport (including the GAA), the arts and cultural bodies.
- The overall probability was at or below the not-flagging threshold.
This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.
Jev’s structured answers
| Question | Probability | Met? |
|---|---|---|
| Identity framing | 0.02 | No |
| Sectarian or communal antagonism | 0.01 | No |
| Cultural grievance politics | 0.02 | No |
| Dog-whistle messaging | 0.01 | No |
| Controversy escalation | 0.02 | No |
| Legitimate policy scrutiny | 0.89 | Yes |
| Overall judgement | 0.03 | At or below not-flagging threshold |
| Option | Probability |
|---|---|
| No identity-based framing (chosen) | 1.00 |
| Reports or questions it | 0.00 |
| Criticises or condemns it | 0.00 |
| Adopts it | 0.00 |
| Subject | Probability |
|---|---|
| Sport (including the GAA), the arts and cultural bodies | 0.62 |
| No identity-related subject | 0.37 |
| Sexism, misogyny, ageism and other equality groups | 0.01 |
| Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials | 0.00 |
| Parades, bonfires and commemorations | 0.00 |
Assessed 21 October 2026 at 15:17 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.
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