The Music Venue Trust has announced that their #SaveOurVenues campaign has raised over £3.8 million this year for crisis-hit grassroots music venues across the UK.

Launched back in April after music venues up and down the country were forced to close their doors due to the coronavirus pandemic, the ongoing campaign is aiming to offer both financial and human support to venues during the health crisis.

In an end-of-year statement, the MVT said they wanted “to acknowledge all the remarkable work that has been done this year to shield our community from the worst possible outcome of this pandemic, and to thank all of the people who made that possible”.

The MVT said they had been able to support 920 Music Venues Alliance members to weather the storm of the pandemic in 2020, and that work will continue next year “as we remain determined to Reopen Every Venue Safely”.

An update on the fundraising efforts of the #SaveOurVenues campaign has also been issued, revealing that a grand total of £3,872,512 has been raised so far.

“This money has been essential in giving venues the human and financial support they need to ride out this crisis until such time that the sector can reopen,” the MVT added.

“This year, more than any other, we are reminded of the words of Joe Strummer, who said: ‘Without people, you’re nothing’. Our community has responded to this crisis with extraordinary passion and commitment. You are our people, and that means everything to us and to the venues.”

Speaking to NME last week after confirming that a further £230,000 in funding would be distributed to 24 of the UK’s worst-hit grassroots music venues, MVT CEO Mark Davyd said that the collective effort to help save venues across the UK this year has been a fine example of “people power”.

“When Music Venue Trust and NME were first talking about this crisis in March, we were looking at the very real closure of 500 venues. In a very short space of time, now not even one of the 30 left on our critical list looks like it will actually be closing imminently as we feared,” he said.

“It’s quite an astonishing achievement and it belongs as much to the writers and readers of the NME as anyone.”