From the Showday desk.
What's actually happening across UK live music — closures and fightbacks, festivals, and the fan-first stuff. Researched from the trade press and rewritten in our own words.
The download dies: Juno pulls the plug on its MP3 store after 20 years
Juno Download, the digital store that soundtracked two decades of bedroom DJs and crate-diggers, went dark overnight on 1 June with no warning — though the Juno Records vinyl shop survives.
Read the full story →Half of UK recording studios fear closure within a year as business rates bite
A Music Producers Guild study warns roughly half of Britain's commercial studios are weighing closure within 12 months, with not a single one able to pass the soaring costs on to clients.
Read more →Tangled Parrot pulls up roots: Welsh indie shop quits Carmarthen and Swansea High Street for new Kingsway flagship
The 26-year-old independent record shop is consolidating two stores into a single larger Swansea unit, not closing its doors for good.
Read more →Grassroots venues bleeding out: half made no profit, 30 gone, 6,000 jobs lost in a year
The Music Venue Trust's Annual Report 2025 lays bare a sector running on fumes, with margins so thin that one bad month finishes the job.
Read more →The Joiners and The Croft go into community hands as fans buy the freeholds
Two grassroots strongholds, Southampton's Joiners and Bristol's Croft, have been pulled out of the lease-trap and into community ownership by Music Venue Properties' Own Our Venues scheme.
Read more →A quarter of UK towns now have nowhere left to dance
New NTIA figures show 26% of towns that once had a nightclub now have none, with the late-night sector down more than a quarter since 2020.
Read more →Red Rooster won't crow: Suffolk Americana festival folds after 12 years
The beloved Euston Estate Americana weekender has been pulled and its organiser is heading into liquidation, after the money to stage a 2026 edition simply wasn't there.
Read more →Hardwick Festival hits pause for 2026 as the maths stops adding up
After twelve years on the County Durham calendar, the 30,000-capacity festival is sitting out 2026 — with organisers insisting it's a breather, not a goodbye.
Read more →Kasabian crack open a brand-new Leeds Thursday as Reading & Leeds names its 2026 six
The August Bank Holiday twin-site has locked in six headliners, handed Leeds its first-ever Thursday night top-billing, and pulled Florence + The Machine back after fourteen years away.
Read more →Touts on notice: government to outlaw resale above face value
Whitehall has finally committed to killing the profit motive in ticket resale, capping prices at face value and putting platforms on the hook to police it.
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