Katy Perry ‘proud’ to donate £1 from every UK ticket to grassroots music venues

Katy Perry has announced she will donate £1 from every ticket sold for her forthcoming UK concerts to support grassroots venues and “usher in the next generation of music talent”.

The US singer follows the likes of British acts Coldplay and Sam Fender in partnering with Music Venue Trust (MVT) to help struggling independent UK venues remain open.

The UK leg of Perry’s October 2025 Lifetimes tour will visit Glasgow, Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham and London, including the UK’s second-largest arena, the AO Arena, which holds 23,000.

Perry played her first UK show in 2008 at Water Rats, a 200-capacity in London ahead of a gig at the 1,145-seat Scala later that year.

Perry said, “I’m proud to donate to Music Venue Trust so that venues like Water Rats and Scala can continue to usher in the next generation of music talent.”

Mark Davyd, MVT CEO, said the contributions from Perrys upcoming shows “will keep venues open, get new artists out on tour and enable promoters to bring the best in new music”.

‘Urgent crisis unfolding’

Last week government issued its official response to the Grassroots Music Venues report published by the Culture Media and Sport Committee (CMS) in May, welcoming recommendations for a voluntary levy on arena and stadium tickets to support grassroots venues, artists and promoters.

“There is more to do to agree concrete proposals and implement a cross-sector approach, with buy-in from across the live music ecosystem. We want to see a voluntary levy come into effect as soon as possible for concerts in 2025,” said the government.

The report had called for the levy to be introduced no later than September 2024.

In a letter to Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy, chair of the CMS committee, Caroline Dinenage said there is an “urgent crisis unfolding in the live music ecosystem up and down our country”.

She called for clarity on how long the industry has to take action before the government steps in, adding that if no “significant progress” is made, the CMS committee will hold a hearing with the sector in six months.

MVT recently warned that measures announced in last month’s budget to reduce business rate relief for grassroots music venues from 75% to 40% from 1 April 2025 will cost the sector more than double its gross profit in 2023.

In a statement, MVT said that removal of the 75% business rate relief was made “despite extensive briefing to HM Treasury, Department of Culture, Media and Sport and Department for Business and Trade about the negative economic, social and cultural impacts”.

“Over 350 Grassroots Music Venues are now placed at immediate risk of closure, representing the potential loss of more than 12,000 jobs, over £250m in economic activity and the loss of over 75,000 live music events,” said the industry body.