The Victoria and Albert Museum has transformed its Theatre and Performance Room into a graveyard of Britain’s shuttered performance spaces this summer.
The Lost Music Venues exhibition features grubby set-lists, salvaged AAA passes and recreations of graffiti-daubed toilet cubicles salvaged from venues across the country.
V&A curator Harriet Reed assembled the archive with the help of public-donated artefacts sourced from sweaty basements, working men’s clubs and former staples of the pop music circuit.
“These spaces are as important as art studios, opera houses and West End theatres,” says Reed, explaining their role in allowing people to find communities and develop careers.
Reed notes that venues are essential not only for musicians but “for people to find their tribes and learn their trades before going on to become poster designers, sound engineers, and promoters and managers for stadiums.”
“As a gig-goer, I was concerned by how the pandemic was impacting the venues I loved,” Reed explains, adding that licensing, economic factors, redevelopment, governmental interference and noise complaints remain persistent issues.
The statistics paint a bleak picture, with the Night Time Industries Association reporting 13,793 clubs, pubs and bars had closed across the UK since the pandemic.
The Music Venue Trust’s most recent Annual Report showed that 53 per cent of UK music venues failed to turn a profit in 2025, with profit margins across the sector standing at just 2.5 per cent.
More than 100 grassroots venues are currently seeking support from the Music Venue Trust charity, which represents hundreds of UK grassroots music venues.
Closures of regional venues including TJ’s in Newport, The Charlotte in Leicester and Moles in Bath have contributed to what Reed describes as the “collapse of the touring circuit.”
Cities that once nurtured major cultural exports including the Manic Street Preachers, Kasabian and Tears for Fears are now frequently left off national touring schedules entirely.
London’s deterioration is illustrated through material from lost venues including Plastic People nightclub and Finsbury Park rock venue The Rainbow Theatre, which now operates as an Evangelical church overlooking a Travelodge.
Venue promoter Marcus Harris witnessed the decline first-hand when his White Heat indie music night was forced to relocate after iconic venue Madame Jojo’s closed.
Madame Jojo’s was “one of the last bastions of old Soho,” says Harris, having once hosted stars including Lorde, Adele and Mercury Prize winners Young Fathers.
The venue’s licence was revoked in 2014 after security staff responded to a bottle-throwing punter by attacking him with baseball bats, ending its celebrated run in the heart of Soho.
Harris says that around this time “Soho was being managed into this sanitised sort of ‘theatre-land’ thing,” marked by the arrival of third-wave coffee shops and luxury co-working spaces.
“All the clubs were closing. It’s like: ‘We want everyone in Soho going for a nice meal and then fucking off by 11 o’clock’, you know?” Harris says.
Harris has guided Angel’s The Lexington, described as “a proper old-school boozer” credited with nurturing UK live acts including Sam Fender and Charli XCX, to its 17th birthday.
He nonetheless warns of a “collapsing ecosystem” that requires urgent restructuring of “rates, bills and licenses,” while also criticising landlords who raise rents the moment a venue becomes successful.
Music Venue Trust’s Beverley Whitrick urges music fans to support venues, even by buying “a super cheap ticket and a soft drink,” warning that “we are in a ‘use them or lose them’ scenario.”
A £200,000 funding allocation from The LIVE Trust, part-funded by an industry-wide £1 ticket levy on shows with over 5,000 capacity, has allowed some venues to invest in their infrastructure.
Reed says the exhibition’s intention is to “remind audiences how important these spaces are,” describing them as “the engine of the creative industries, where multidisciplinary artists and practitioners can develop freely.”
Visitors leave through the original doors from The End nightclub, once home to resident DJs Fatboy Slim and Erol Alkan, a building that now sits derelict just off New Oxford Street.