The value of the UK music industry has hit a record £7.6bn after superstar acts including Elton John, Beyoncé, Coldplay and Ed Sheeran embarked on Covid-delayed tours to cash in on pent-up fan demand for live shows.
UK Music, the umbrella organisation representing the commercial music industry from artists and record labels to the live music sector, said that the economic value of the industry to the UK economy surged by almost £1bn in 2023.
UK tours by top acts including Elton John’s last live shows, Ed Sheeran, Blur, Harry Styles and Beyoncé – who was credited by one economist for Sweden reporting higher than expected inflation as fans flocked to her Stockholm gig – helped drive music’s contribution to the UK economy up by 13% to a record £7.6bn.
“A decade which began with the pandemic, causing much devastation to the sector, has seen a resilient music industry emerge,” said Tom Kiehl, the chief executive of UK Music.
It also proved to be a bumper year for British music “exports”, with acts touring internationally including Coldplay, Styles, Arctic Monkeys and Adele, who has had a residency at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.
The revenue from UK music exports hit a new high of £4.6bn last year, up 15% on the £4bn recorded in 2022.
The live music boom also meant that industry employment hit a record high of 216,000 full-time equivalent posts last year, up 3% from 210,000 in 2022.
However, while the big-name acts proved to be cash cows for the industry, the report highlighted figures from the Music Venue Trust charity which showed that about 125 grassroots music venues across the UK closed last year, and more than 350 are at risk of shutting down.
Since the live music shutdown during the Covid pandemic, the festival sector has also struggled to rebound, with many smaller-scale events disappearing or struggling to continue.
The Association of Independent Festivals has said that 60 festivals announced postponement, cancellation or closure this year, while 192 have disappeared since 2019, just before the Covid pandemic.
Kiehl said that, despite the record figures, the music sector faced major threats from issues such as the remuneration artists receive from streaming, and the increasing impact of a loss of earnings from unlicensed artificial intelligence programmes using their work without permission.
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“This is not a time to be complacent,” said Kiehl. “The UK music industry has vulnerabilities, too.
“Increasing global competition, tough financial conditions for artists and the grassroots, as well as the wild west that is generative AI, are all conspiring to be significant challenges for the sector.
“We are now at a tipping point, and if the problems we face are not addressed then future growth cannot be guaranteed.”
The industry body’s annual This is Music report gauges the financial health of the industry and its contribution to the wider UK economy, spanning music sales and licensing to all UK tours and international touring by British artists as well as merchandise, which it measures as gross value added (GVA).