Recent developments, from Brexit to COVID-19, have serious ramifications for the UK’s live music industry, which faces a series of stark challenges. The combination of event cancellations due to COVID-19 and potential disruptions to supply chains and free movement following Brexit, risks damaging the nation’s interdependent local economies and local music ecologies. Even beyond these pressing problems, the ‘cultural pushback’ from perceptions of Britain post-Brexit could further limit future opportunities for our local music ecologies as they slowly reopen and recover from the pandemic.

This webinar is organised by the Foreign Policy Centre and the Aston Centre for Europe, in conjunction with the Birmingham Live Music Project (BLMP). BLMP is funded by Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre (PEC), which is led by Nesta and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The BLMP has been researching the implications of Brexit and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on Birmingham’s live music ecology. Through this case study, it is looking at the relationship between local music, national polities and their international contexts, providing a globalised local perspective on current difficulties for the live music sector.

The webinar will discuss this situation, with a particular focus on Brexit and COVID-19, and their impacts on the live music industry in the post-2019 era, highlighting the interconnectedness of live music ecologies and economies. It will also explore the theoretical context, and practical consequences, of the relationship between local music and national policy in response to these and other challenges.

You can listen to the audio recording on our Soundcloud page.

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