Brixton music venues get relief funds

Exterior of the Hootananny pub in Brixton
The Hootananny has been offered a grant of £250,000

Brixton’s Hootananny, with £250,000, is among 27 Lambeth institutions to receive a total of more than £5.5m of funding in the first round of Arts Council England’s Culture Recovery Fund grants.

The fund announced a total of £257m for 1,385 organisations in the first round of grants to applications of below £1m.

More grants are expected to be announced soon. Arts Council England plans to distribute a total of £500m of National Lottery funds in grants ranging from £50,000 to £3m.

Off the Cuff next to Herne Hill station gets £100,000 and Pop Brixton gets £220,385. Music Venues Ltd, owners of Electric Brixton, get £623.000.Brixton House theatre (formerly Ovalhouse) gets £250,000. The Columbo Group, owners of Blues Kitchen venues and Phonox, among others, gets £250,000.

Other Lambeth recipients include Streatham Space Project (£95,000) and Clapham’s Omnibus theatre (£172,549). 

The Oval-based Triangle Network, a global network of artists and visual arts organisations that supports professional development and cultural exchange amongst artists, curators and other arts professionals throughout the world, gets £66,000.

Some 50 Hackney-based organisation received a total of just under £9m and 40 Islington organisations a total of just over £9m.

The full list for Lambeth is below

Lambeth recipients of Cultural Relief Fund grants below £1m

Organisation Name£ Award offeredDisciplineConstituency
Young Vic Company961455TheatreVauxhall
London Philharmonic Orchestra650000MusicVauxhall
Music Venues Limited (Electric Brixton)623000MusicStreatham
Hootananny Brixton Ltd250000MusicDulwich and West Norwood
Columbo South Limited (Blues Kitchen)250000MusicVauxhall
Christ Church Oxford United Clubs Ltd (Brixton House)250000TheatreVauxhall
Elliott Harper Productions Ltd250000TheatreVauxhall
Studio Voltaire247391Visual artsVauxhall
The Garden Museum240000MuseumsVauxhall
Candlelight Concerts228000MusicStreatham
Pop Brixton Limited220385Combined artsDulwich and West Norwood
Omnibus theatre172549TheatreVauxhall
Tamara Barton Campbell152980Visual artsVauxhall
Florence Nightingale Museum Trust137230MuseumsVauxhall
Peckham Levels Limited131998Combined artsDulwich and West Norwood
Off The Cuff100000MusicDulwich and West Norwood
IMG Artists (UK) Ltd100000MusicVauxhall
Streatham Space Project95000TheatreStreatham
Belarus Free Theatre95000TheatreVauxhall
Beaconsfield gallery89216Visual artsVauxhall
Handmade in Britain77904Visual artsVauxhall
IKLECTIK ART LAB CIC70000Combined artsVauxhall
Triangle Arts Trust66000Visual artsVauxhall
Shadwell Opera60500MusicVauxhall
Dsantos Dance UK Ltd50000DanceStreatham
London Contemporary Voices50000MusicStreatham
Waterloo East Theatre50000TheatreVauxhall
TOTAL5668608

The Music Venue Trust (MVT) welcomed the funding, saying it was “a huge step forward in the efforts to reopen every venue safely”.

MVT has been working with the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Arts Council England and said it recognised the efforts of the government, particularly the Secretary of State and the Chancellor, to understand what was required by grassroots music venues and to make it happen.

“Saving our grassroots venue sector requires a massive jigsaw puzzle of efforts, from the smallest local fundraiser by a community desperate to keep its cherished local venue, to the enormous scope of the government’s Cultural Recovery Fund, one of the largest such funds in the world,” said MVT CEO Mark Dayvd.

He said the first round of funding gave MVT, the sector and communities an achievable opportunity to complete the English section of the jigsaw.

MVT’s focus now will be to work with every venue that was ineligible for funding, and any venue that was unsuccessful in its application to the Cultural Relief Fund.

“Our continued mission remains to reopen every venue safely, an aim that, with this support from the government, we are confident is now achievable.”