Live music in Scotland is currently on two diverging paths. One is pulling in thousands of people into highly lucrative self-contained spaces night after night, while the other quietly hangs in the balance, struggling to survive.

Concerts operating in the upper echelons are booming. Attendance at the OVO Hydro in Glasgow jumped 30% in one year, and the arena has ramped up the number of productions it hosts on a similar incline. Murrayfield in Edinburgh generated £120 million in one seven-month period, its non-rugby-related bread-and-butter business playing host to hot-ticket touchstone events such as Oasis’ three-night reunion run.

Grassroots venues have been on a completely different trajectory, struggling to stabilise the pandemic aftershocks in the years that followed. Only one small venue closed in 2021, creeping up to five in 2022, and then jumping to a scene-altering 14 in 2023. These venues are seldom replaced, and the ones that remain hang on by threads, slowly shuttering one by one.

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The Scottish Greens propose a simple solution to this diverging two-tier system of live music, which would be known as the “stadium tax”. Under the proposal, a mandatory £1 levy would be placed on tickets for large-scale arts and music events at venues with capacities over 2500. This would include mega-stadiums like Murrayfield and Hampden Park, alongside major arena spaces like the OVO........

© Herald Scotland