There's now a map of all London's grassroots music venues — and it comes bearing glad tidings.
The map — created by Music Venue Trust — is populated by everything from stalwarts like the Windmill in Brixton, to newcomers like Kamio. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's rather clustered towards central and east London (if you didn't know Dalston is the place to be, where have you been for the past decade?).
But there's the odd outlier too. Styx (in Tottenham) and The Fighting Cocks (Kingston) prove that independent music's flag is proudly flying all over London.
The 94 venues on the map constitute a valuable part of London's nighttime economy; together, they contribute £91.8m a year, plus 2,260 full-time jobs. Just as importantly they provide emerging young talent an opportunity to breakthrough — and Londoners a chance to have one hell of a good time.
It's especially heartening to see Fabric on the map, after its brief council-mandated closure. The map shows a breakthrough in the battle to save London's nighttime culture; in 2016 as many new venues opened as closed. This is the first stabilisation in the number of nighttime venues since 2007. The efforts of the Music Venue Trust and night czar Amy Lamé cannot be underplayed, after a tough few years.
