INDEPENDENT VENUE WEEK 2020 CELEBRATES WITH INTIMATE LIVE SHOWS AND TOURS, A FEATURE DOCUMENTARY & NEW LIVE RECORD RELEASE

independentvenueweek.com

#IVW20

Return­ing for its sev­enth con­sec­ut­ive year, Inde­pend­ent Ven­ue Week is a sev­en day cel­eb­ra­tion of inde­pend­ent music ven­ues around the UK, cham­pi­on­ing the venue’s import­ance to the nation’s cul­ture and iden­tity through those that own, work and play in them. IVW will take place from Monday 27 Janu­ary — Sunday 2 Feb­ru­ary 2020.

The BBC 6 Home­com­ing Tour with Steve Lamacq (Anna Calvi, Nad­ine Shah, Frank Turn­er, Self Esteem, Gry­ff Rhys) will be a key part of over 800 gigs tak­ing place across the UK along­side oth­er tours and shows includ­ing BC Camp­light, Pigs x7, TOY, Sinead O’Brien, Demob Happy, Toy­ah Wil­cox, Ste­reo MC’s Twin Atlantic, Morcheeba, Goat Girl, Black Coun­try New Road, Raging Speed­horn). The week before also sees the release of IVW’s fea­ture doc­u­ment­ary, The Long and Wind­ing Road, with Philip Sel­way (Radi­o­head) and their second live record release from #IVW19 (Can­cer Bats, Pip Blom, Pub­lic Ser­vice Broad­cast­ing).

Fun­ded in part­ner­ship with Arts Coun­cil Eng­land, Arts Coun­cil Wales, Cre­at­ive Scot­land, BBC 6 Music, BBC Sounds, Fred Perry, Har­man, Musi­cians Uni­on, PPL, PRS For Music, Yamaha and York­shire Tea and with over 230 ven­ues across the UK signed up to take part, these inde­pend­ent ven­ues have giv­en artists their first live plat­forms, they have giv­en fans their first exper­i­ence of live music, and they have inspired careers with­in the music industry on and off stage. Inde­pend­ent ven­ues are at the begin­ning of each jour­ney and a host of incred­ible musi­cians, crew and gig-goers will come togeth­er to cel­eb­rate their grass roots in a week long cel­eb­ra­tion of inde­pend­ent ven­ues.

Fol­low­ing the announce­ment of Inde­pend­ent Ven­ue Week 2020 Ambas­sad­or, Mer­cury Prize nom­in­ated musi­cian, Anna Calvi (UK) at a launch event in Lon­don in Novem­ber 2019, Anna said “As an artist who spent many years devel­op­ing my art in small ven­ues across the UK, it’s such a pleas­ure to be named the ambas­sad­or of Inde­pend­ent Ven­ue Week 2020”

“At a time where inde­pend­ent ven­ues con­tin­ue to provide a vital plat­form in every artists career, yet still struggle to keep their doors open, it’s more import­ant than ever for every artist, no mat­ter what size, to con­tin­ue our sup­port and be vocal about their vital­ity.”

For the first time, there are two addi­tion­al Ambas­sad­ors for the nations, BBC Radio 1 presenter, Huw Steph­ens (Wales) and BBC Radio Scot­land presenter, Vic Gal­lo­way (Scot­land).

IVW can now reveal their full plans for this year’s cel­eb­ra­tion;

The BBC 6 Music Home­com­ing Tour with Steve Lamacq
27- 31 Janu­ary 2020

Con­tinu­ing their ongo­ing sup­port of Inde­pend­ent Ven­ue Week, The BBC 6 Music Home­com­ing Tour with Steve Lamacq, will kick off on Monday 27 Janu­ary, see­ing Lamacq take his BBC Radio 6 Music show to five UK cit­ies, cel­eb­rat­ing homegrown music ven­ues. Steve will be wel­com­ing Nad­ine Shah, Self Esteem, Gruff Rhys, Frank Turn­er, and Anna Calvi, from Monday 27 to Fri­day 31 Janu­ary, 4–7pm, tak­ing the bus across New­castle, Shef­field, Cardiff, Exeter and Lon­don.

Speak­ing on the tour, Steve Lamacq says — “Janu­ary can be a make or break time for small ven­ues, so it’s ter­rif­ic to be involved in Inde­pend­ent Ven­ue Week again, which was launched spe­cific­ally to sup­port these places and the artists who thrive in them. This time we’re try­ing to emphas­ise just how import­ant loc­al ven­ues can be in provid­ing a stage for new artists on their way to big­ger suc­cess, by tak­ing some of our favour­ite musi­cians back to the haunts where they first plied their trade and began hon­ing their songs.”

On the final stop of the tour on Fri­day 31 Janu­ary, Lamacq will broad­cast his 6 Music show live inside London’s renowned inde­pend­ent ven­ue, The Wind­mill Brix­ton, where he is joined by IVW’s 2020 UK Ambas­sad­or Anna Calvi for an incred­ibly intim­ate live per­form­ance. The Lon­don born sing­er and gui­tar­ist is a three time Mer­cury Prize nom­in­ee who scored the fifth sea­son of BBC One series Peaky Blinders and is set to cap­tiv­ate audi­ences in this very spe­cial, one-off show.
Anna Calvi’s show at The Wind­mill Brix­ton will be avail­able via bal­lot here: annacalvi.com/win

Long And Wind­ing Road : Doc­u­ment­ary
Première Date: 21 Janu­ary 2020

Blue Hippo Media, cre­at­ors of acclaimed music doc­u­ment­ary Last Shop Stand­ing, have partnered with Inde­pend­ent Ven­ue Week to cre­ate a fea­ture doc­u­ment­ary cel­eb­rat­ing and explor­ing the eclect­ic, dynam­ic and magic­al world of inde­pend­ent music ven­ues. Teas­er here.

Film­ing began dur­ing IVW 2018 and con­tin­ued through 2019, when the IVW team hit the road with Philip Sel­way (Radi­o­head) vis­it­ing places that were instru­ment­al in the early days of the band. Speak­ing about his week on tour, Sel­way said, “Going on the road trip for Inde­pend­ent Ven­ue Week, I was able to recon­nect with the ven­ues and people that I came across in the early days of tour­ing with Radi­o­head. It gave me a great­er insight into the highly motiv­ated and inspir­a­tion­al com­munit­ies that make these ven­ues hap­pen. They truly are the back­bone and well­spring of music in the UK.”

The pas­sion and stor­ies cap­tured truly reflect the love there is for these ven­ues. Sel­way spoke with own­ers, artists and pro­moters along with loc­al people involved in their scene, includ­ing gig goers, to under­stand how import­ant these ven­ues are to every­one that comes through their doors. Con­trib­ut­ors to the fea­ture doc­u­ment­ary inc. Nad­ine Shah, Nick Mason (Pink Floyd), Sheila Ravenscroft (John Peel Centre), Adri­an Utley (Portishead), Gaz Coombes, IDLES and many more. The doc­u­ment­ary was filmed at the 100 Club, John Peel Centre, Moles Club Bath, Brudenell Social Club, The Boil­e­room, The New Adelphi, The Trades Club Heb­den Bridge and oth­ers.

London’s Bush Hall will host the première on Tues­day 21^st Janu­ary (fol­lowed by a live Q&A hos­ted by Steve Lamacq with Philip Sel­way, Adri­an Utley, Nad­ine Shah, Dom Frazer (Boil­e­room), Sybil Bell (Inde­pend­ent Ven­ue Week Founder) and Pip Piper (Dir­ect­or). Both the doc­u­ment­ary and Q&A will also be streamed live in selec­ted ven­ues across the UK.

Inde­pend­ent Ven­ue Week Live 2019
Release Date: 24 Janu­ary 2020

To fur­ther cel­eb­rate the fruit­ful live music scene in the UK, IVW will be releas­ing their second vinyl-only live album, fea­tur­ing a col­lec­tion of standout acts from 2019’s Inde­pend­ent Ven­ue Week (inc. Can­cer Bats, John Paul, Pip Blom, Pub­lic Ser­vice Broad­cast­ing, Rozi Plain, Talk Show, The Blinders, This Is The Kit along with the live per­form­ance of the poem writ­ten by Dom Frazer from the Boil­e­room at the IVW launch Nov 19 ).

J. Will­goose Esq, Pub­lic Ser­vice Broad­cast­ing, says — “We loved play­ing Inde­pend­ent Ven­ue Week in 2019 — we’re still very used to play­ing small rooms, espe­cially on the con­tin­ent, but it’s been a while since we played ven­ues like the Adelphi and the Trades Club here in the UK and it made for a great atmo­sphere.”

Lim­ited to only 250 units, the double gate­fold, 180g record will be released by I like The Sound Of That, the label of IVW’s com­mer­cial arm on Fri­day 24^th Janu­ary 2020 and only avail­able in UK stores.

The “Big Jeff” Tour 2020
TBC mid-Jan

A very spe­cial tour will be announced in due course with former IVW ambas­sad­or and legendary gig-goer “Big Jeff” (Jef­frey Johns). He will be tak­ing to the road to meet the com­munit­ies around these ven­ues, with a focus on oth­er gig goers who also have addi­tion­al needs, high­light­ing what it means to attend gigs as someone with a dis­ab­il­ity.

For full event list­ings please vis­it: independentvenueweek.com