UK venues react to reopening today for socially distanced gigs: “We are BACK!”

Venues across the UK have reacting on social media as they prepare to re-open for socially distanced events today.

  • READ MORE: Restarting live music in 2021 – Gig and festival bosses on what to expect

Much anticipation surrounds the return of live music following a year of inaction due to the coronavirus pandemic, especially after the recent COVID pilot test events for clubbing and a small festival set-up featuring Blossoms, The Lathums and ZuZu.

Today (May 17) is the penultimate stage for easing COVID-19 lockdown restrictions in the UK before a planned return to full capacity social activity on June 21.

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According to a survey earlier this month from Music Venues Trust (MVT), over 28,500 shows are booked to place in England’s grassroots music venues, as coronavirus lockdown restrictions start to be lifted.

Tweeting today, the MVT wrote: “After 15 long, difficult months, today is the day the Grassroots Music Venues across the country can finally begin the challenging journey back to brining you the live music we all love.”

The MVT have also created a virtual map guide to all the events happening across the UK, which you can follow here.

You can see some of the reactions from venues, record labels and artists across the UK to the re-openings today here:

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In other news, London’s O2 has today (May 17) announced that it will hold full capacity gigs from August.

The venue will re-open with a series of ‘Welcome Back’ events which will see artists playing to full capacity crowds for the first time since March 2020.

The first event to be announced was ‘Mo Gilligan and Friends and The Black British Takeover’ which will see the comedian perform at the O2 on December 8. Tickets for that event will go on sale here on May 21 from 10am.

Further events from August through to December will be announced soon, and promise to include some “rock, pop and dance” events.







Over 17,000 full capacity shows are now already confirmed to take place by the end of September across the UK, with around 28,500 shows likely to take place in front of 6,803,481 audience members.

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