London is literally putting its grassroots music scene on the map – the Tube map, to be precise – in a new campaign to boost the city’s independent venues. Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson has teamed up with London Mayor Sadiq Khan to champion the capital’s 179 small music venues, which collectively hosted over 4.2 million audience visits and 328,000 performers last year.
These tiny clubs and pubs are the breeding ground for tomorrow’s superstars and pump about £313 million into London’s economy annually. But they’ve been threatened in recent years by development, rising costs, and the post-pandemic hangover.
The city’s response? A splashy “London Creates Music” initiative that includes a special edition Tube map celebrating grassroots venues, and a media blitz to remind people that every Judas Priest or Deep Purple starts out on a small stage.
It’s a refreshingly fun, irreverent approach to economic development – actually treating live music joints as the cultural infrastructure they are. Other so-called “Music Cities” might want to take notes (looking at you, Nashville and Austin, it might be too late for you) and invest in the actual music ecosystem, not just branding.