'Arena gigs are selling out but medium-sized venues are struggling': Live music in Liverpool

Tom Wilson and his friends felt lost after leaving university.

Like many people forging a career in music and the arts, finding affordable places to practise and perform was very hard. Speaking to the ECHO, he said: “When we finished university, we all worked in various art forms. We had nowhere to cut our teeth without costing an arm and or a leg.

Tom decided to take things into his own hands. Along with other musicians, an actor and a ballroom dancer began to run affordable events across the city centre. These eventually moved under one roof in 2019 at Arts Bar on Hope Street. A new location on Parliament Street, called Arts Bar Baltic, opened last year.

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Explaining what Arts Bar can offer, Tom, 31, said: “New artists can test out our venues then go onto something big. We should be the launching pad for gigs and exhibitions.

“When it works, then you can book those bigger spaces. Hopefully, that is cyclical and we’ll receive even more artists coming through.

Tom cites the Everyman bistro, which in the 1980s was a hotbed for emerging artists to meet. He said: “As well as the second venue, we’ve got an extra floor at Hope Street. We can do discounted, subsided rates. They can do the whole thing in-house - rehearsals, putting on a show, marketing and filming there.”

Arts Bar is taking part in Independent Venue Week (IVW), a nationwide initiative which offers discounted prices for gigs for a week in late January. Tom said: “This is the first year we felt ready to get involved with it.

“IVW is the perfect week to showcase these artists. It being in