A music venue in Ayr has received £5,000 in funding from a national charity.

Venue38 received £5000 from Charity Music Venue Trust's (MVT) Pipeline Investment Fund to make internal improvements.

Co-owner of Venue38, which is situated in the town's Carrick Street and is popular with local music lovers, Tracy Anne McGregor turned to Music Venue Trust following the announcement of the charity’s Pipeline Investment Fund, a major new funding initiative which provides grants of up to £5,000 for UK Grassroots Music Venues. 

She said: “The lower level of the venue has been a bit of a ‘dead’ area.

“When the work is complete the space can be used during the day by students from the local college for filming, music and sound production as well as local artists for rehearsals.

"In the evening, it will incorporate a dedicated merchandise area and a green room for performers, as well as a more secure bar.

“We had been hoping to make the improvements for a while however, due to the rising cost of living, it is taking longer than we hoped for ticket sales to return to pre-pandemic levels.

"Having access to this fund has enabled us to move ahead with this project along with utilising our own income to complete it.

“Like all grassroots music venues our margins are razor-thin.

"This isn't a profitable industry and we don't do it for the money, we do it for the love of music.

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"This means that saving money for important new equipment can be very difficult and unexpected costs such as replacing equipment can mean that we use up all of our reserves to do so, putting us in a position of financial uncertainty.

“The grant allows us to develop ourselves as a venue and helps free up more money for investment back into arts and culture.

"The funding will not only be important to us, but to all the local acts in the area as we try and support them as much as we can, the pipeline fund will allow us to do this more effectively.

The Pipeline Investment Fund was established with the support of members of the Music Venues Alliance and was primarily funded by donations from ticket sales of MVT’s recent ‘Revive Live’ programme of gigs around the UK, which was a partnership with The National Lottery.

Mark Davyd, Founder and CEO of MVT, added: “The Pipeline Investment Fund is proof of what a huge difference relatively small amounts of money can make to local Grassroots Music Venues.

"Music Venue Trust is investing this money directly into facilities for artists and for local music communities improving venues for everyone.

"We’d like to see every stadium and arena show in the country making a small contribution to this fund.

"Every headline artist should be able to know with confidence that when they reach the top of our industry the impact of their success ripples back to directly support the venues and communities where the launched their career.

"MVT has created the mechanism to make that possible, we need the music industry to come together and make it happen.”