Greater Manchester Mayor Bev Craig has announced a further £2m investment to support grassroots and creative industries across the city-region. She made the pledge during a keynote speech at an AI summit at the Beyond The Music festival and conference at MediaCity in Salford Quays on Friday morning (October 9).
Music's economic impact in Greater Manchester
In her speech, Ms Craig spoke about the city-region's contribution to the creative industries, which she said had grown thanks to major events such as the BRIT Awards, held earlier this year and set to return next year. She told delegates: "It's one of the reasons we can stand proudly and boast to be a growing home to music.
"I don't just mean things like the BRITs, the MOBOs and global brands coming to Greater Manchester, and the success you see of the likes of Co-op Live, it's the fact we have over 1,100 grassroots pubs and live music venues across our city-region that directly employ 11,000 people, or that we see music bringing over £1.5bn into our economy every single year."
Investment in grassroots venues and talent
Ms Craig said the council had partnered with the Music Venue Trust over Co-op Live and the Oasis takeover at Heaton Park last year, adding it was 'my job to not just be an ambassador, but to support our grassroots'. She referenced the council's recent £15m investment in culture across three years, with individual support for organisations in each borough, and said the council had already 'committed over four million' to helping grassroots and emerging artists.
She said: "I want to announce an additional £2m that, as Greater Manchester Mayor, I'm putting into skills, to talent, to pathway and to grassroots venues to help protect what we're trying to grow.
"That means in some places, it's access to studio space, it's access to rehearsal space, it's the things that you need to help your career grow before you've got the ability and the resources to pay and protect that in all of our towns, right across Manchester."
Details to follow
A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) told the Manchester Evening News after the speech that more details regarding the additional resources will be shared in due course.
Beyond The Music began earlier this week with the 24th anniversary screening of 24 Hour Party People, starring Steve Coogan as Tony Wilson. The event was attended by figures from Manchester's music scene, including singer Rowetta and actor John Thomson.
Founded three years ago, the event aims to inspire, educate and create a network for those in the music industry through live gigs, panel discussions, summits and keynote speeches. Co-founder Oli Wilson said of the city-region's music scene: "Quite often, when we talk about supporting the music industry, we talk about encouraging a talent pipeline, but I think we're past that here in Manchester. The pipeline is bursting.
"What we are in need of is more music industry here in Manchester. There are already some brilliant labels, organisations here, but I think we could be ten times bigger. We certainly have the amount of artists and the people who want to work in the music business to warrant it."
