Inde­pen­dent Venue Week lights up the end of Jan­u­ary with a fab­u­lous roll-call of musi­cians at venues around the coun­try. It’s the sev­enth IVW 2020, and it’s hap­pen­ing Mon­day 27th Jan­u­ary to Sun­day 2 Feb­ru­ary. This year cel­e­bra­tions include inti­mate live shows and tours, a fea­ture doc­u­men­tary and a new live record release – details below.

Over 230 inde­pen­dent UK venues are tak­ing part, with shows from Anna Calvi, BC Camp­light, Frank Turn­er, Gruff Rhys, Morchee­ba, Nadine Shah, Self Esteem and many more. There are over 800 gigs in all. And this year’s IVW ambas­sador is Anna Calvi.

Last year I met Sybil Bell, the founder of IVW, at The Trades in Heb­den Bridge, a venue which always sup­ports this cel­e­bra­tion of music and found her utter­ly inspir­ing in her devo­tion to keep­ing grass­roots music venues alive. So many parts of the coun­try are see­ing venues close. My area of Lon­don has lost three great venues in the past cou­ple of years, includ­ing our town hall which pro­vid­ed three venues in its capa­cious and char­ac­ter­ful inte­ri­or. Thank­ful­ly, a cou­ple of local pubs are step­ping up and run­ning occa­sion­al music nights but we’re feel­ing the loss.

This year there are some excit­ing events lined up for IVW 2020:

THE BBC6 music homecoming tour with Steve Lamacq
27–31 Jan

The BBC 6 Music Home­com­ing Tour with Steve Lamacq, will kick off on Mon­day 27 Jan­u­ary, see­ing Lamacq take his BBC Radio 6 Music show to five UK cities, cel­e­brat­ing home­grown music venues. Steve will be wel­com­ing Nadine Shah, Self Esteem, Gruff Rhys, Frank Turn­er, and Anna Calvi, from Mon­day 27 to Fri­day 31 Jan­u­ary, 4–7pm, tak­ing the bus across New­cas­tle, Sheffield, Cardiff, Exeter and London.

Anna Calvi’s show at The Wind­mill Brix­ton will be avail­able via bal­lot here: annacalvi.com/win

Long And Winding Road: Documentary
Premiere date: 21 January

Blue Hip­po Media, cre­ators of acclaimed music doc­u­men­tary Last Shop Stand­ing, have part­nered with IVW to cre­ate a fea­ture doc­u­men­tary cel­e­brat­ing and explor­ing the eclec­tic, dynam­ic and mag­i­cal world of inde­pen­dent music venues.

Film­ing began dur­ing IVW 2018 and con­tin­ued through 2019, when the IVW team hit the road with Philip Sel­way (Radio­head) vis­it­ing places that were instru­men­tal in the ear­ly days of the band.

London’s Bush Hall will host the pre­miere on Tues­day 21st Jan­u­ary (fol­lowed by a live Q&A host­ed by Steve Lamacq with Philip Sel­way, Adri­an Utley, Nadine Shah, Dom Fraz­er (Boile­room), Sybil Bell, and Pip Piper (Direc­tor). Both the doc­u­men­tary and Q&A will also be streamed live in select­ed venues.

Independent Venue Week Live 2019
Release date: 24 January

To fur­ther cel­e­brate the fruit­ful live music scene in the UK, IVW will be releas­ing their sec­ond vinyl-only live album, fea­tur­ing acts from 2019’s Inde­pen­dent Venue Week (inc. Can­cer Bats, John Paul, Pip Blom, Pub­lic Ser­vice Broad­cast­ing, Rozi Plain, Talk Show, The Blind­ers, This Is The Kit along with the live per­for­mance of the poem writ­ten by Dom Fraz­er from the Boile­room at the IVW launch Nov 19 ).

J. Will­go­ose Esq, Pub­lic Ser­vice Broad­cast­ing, says – “We loved play­ing Inde­pen­dent Venue Week in 2019 – we’re still very used to play­ing small rooms, espe­cial­ly on the con­ti­nent, but it’s been a while since we played venues like the Adel­phi and the Trades Club here in the UK and it made for a great atmos­phere.”

Lim­it­ed to only 250 units, the dou­ble gate­fold, 180g record will be released by I like The Sound Of That, the label of IVW’s com­mer­cial arm on Fri­day 24th Jan­u­ary 2020 and only avail­able in UK stores.

The “Big Jeff” Tour 2020
TBC mid-Jan

A very spe­cial tour will be announced in due course with for­mer IVW ambas­sador and leg­endary Bris­tol gig-goer “Big Jeff” (Jef­frey Johns). He will be tak­ing to the road to meet the com­mu­ni­ties around these venues, with a focus on oth­er gig goers who also have addi­tion­al needs, high­light­ing what it means to attend gigs as some­one with a disability.

Inde­pen­dent Venue Week takes place from 27 Jan to 2 February