"Massive" mental health toll on people working in music venues

But there is plenty of hope in the current series of concerts Brighton Dome is staging in support of Brighton’s beleaguered music scene.

Brighton Dome is now half-way through a series of small-scale performances in its Concert Hall, open to audiences for the first time since closing in March 2020.

Tickets are limited to 250 each night, presented in a cabaret-style seating format, as well as offering a live stream for viewers to watch online.

From jazz fusion to punk, electro-pop to beat poetry, the events will nurture young creative talent, help support a collective solidarity and raise awareness of the financial plight venues have faced since the coronavirus pandemic forced them to close their doors.

Venues and artists will benefit from fund-raising opportunities through ticket sales and donations.

For Toni, it’s just what the music scene needs right at the moment.

“We closed down in March, and we haven’t been able to open at all.

“We are not planning to open at all until social-distancing gigs are over. We can only get 15 people in (the Green Door Store) with social distancing, and it is just not financially viable. You wouldn’t be able to pay the artists, the staff, the sound engineers. It just wouldn’t make sense – especially as a lot of our gigs are free. We were relying on bar take.”

Usually they would be looking at audiences of around 100 or up to 300 people on a club night; they have gone down from ten events a week to nothing.

“It has been quite a shock to the community.”

And inevitably it has been quite a shock to Toni: “It has had a massive effect on the emotional health of people in the music venues. It just feels like you are losing your identity. I have worked in live music for the past 15 years. Not to be able to go to shows or to programme shows, I just don’t know what to do with myself. And then people in the events industry are being told that they should consider retraining! I have worked really hard to be in this business. It just feels like the arts have been devalued for everyone. Historically grass-roots music venues have never been funded by the Arts Council anyway, but we had applied for money to do a project before lockdown, and then the Arts Council said they were putting the money into the Covid relief fund and that our application was no longer viable.”

Toni doesn’t believe that the hospitality industry is necessarily responsible for spreading the virus anyway, certainly nowhere near as much as universities and educational institutions.

She believes rather than the government focusing on ways of keeping the venues shut, they should be trying to find ways of getting them open again, rapid temperature-testing and even increasing reduced capacities.

“If we were reduced to 50 per cent of capacity, that would be nowhere near as bad.

“If we were able to have 100 people in, then that would still be just about financially viable. That would be a big difference. If we could increase it and learn to manage the venue, that would really help.”

But in the meantime, the Dome series is at least making a bold statement: “It is not going to raise a lot of money because there are a lot of venues, but it feels important. This is the first time we have seen a socially distanced gig in Brighton, and it is going to be done really safely with a really good line-up. And I am sure the appetite is there. People really want to be able to go to gigs.”

Live Is Alive! tickets are on sale from Brighton Dome’s website brightondome.org.

The remaining dates for Saturday, October 31 and Saturday, November 7.

Steps announce Brighton date and new album

West Sussex man reveals "truth" about his sister's murder in 10 Rillington Place

Why pre-booking might be here to stay at Weald & Downland Living Museum

Loxwood Drive-In Movies set for 2021 return

IN PICTURES: Eastbourne Pier turns film star!

IN PICTURES: Images of lockdown across Brighton and Hastings

• Talk is increasing of further lockdowns in the UK. What do you think of the situation? Join the Big Conversation and have your say on everything from healthcare to how the pandemic has affected you personally and how we make our communities stronger: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/bc-worthing