Keeping Music Live: WaterBear and Music Venue Trust join forces with multi-city tour

WaterBear | The College of Music – in collaboration with Music Venue Trust, has announced full details of its Keeping Music Live campaign: a national tour running from 18 October to 1 November 2025, supporting independent music venues across the UK.

The tour will visit Hull (The New Adelphi Club), Sheffield (Yellow Arch Studios), Manchester (Castle Hotel), Nottingham (Rough Trade), Norwich (Voodoo Daddy’s), London (Rough Trade East) and Brighton (WaterBear Venue). Tickets are priced at just £1, with all proceeds going directly to Music Venue Trust (MVT), the national charity safeguarding grassroots venues.

A proportion of tickets will be distributed by Tickets for Good, reaching NHS staff, teachers, charity workers, volunteers and individuals affected by the cost of living crisis. Their platform ensures that access to live music isn’t limited by income or circumstance, supporting WaterBear’s mission to embed music education within the real-life, real-world infrastructure of the UK scene.

The tour will feature a fantastic line-up of emerging artists, including students from WaterBear’s Sheffield and Brighton colleges, along with local openers in each city and some of the most exciting breakthrough acts on the circuit. Highlights include emotionally charged songwriter Ross Stewart in Norwich, synth-driven headliner Liz Mann in Manchester, and Sheffield’s own Sundress, who appear alongside is this ok and Airport Dad in Nottingham following their standout performance at Tramlines. Sheffield band Femur take the spotlight at Yellow Arch, while London’s Rough Trade East show features Faeser, Dirtsharks and SPIKEMYHEART. The tour closes in Brighton with a high-impact live set from Knife Bride and Matted.

The Manchester date is produced in partnership with Scruff of the Neck, and the wider tour is supported by Love Music Hate Racism, Save Our Scene, and Fightback Lager, with donations from each pint sold going to MVT.

Importantly, every stop on the tour includes a slot for local openers, giving regional bands a genuine platform on a tour with national visibility. It’s one of the ways this campaign walks the talk: giving back to the local ecosystems it draws from.

According to MVT’s 2024 Annual Report, 125 grassroots venues closed in the past year, making it the worst year on record, with an average of two closures per week. These spaces are being lost to rising costs, noise complaints, development pressure and a lack of coordinated support. The long-term impact of these closures is devastating for both artists and audiences. These are the places where bands cut their teeth, where sound engineers, promoters and future headliners learn their craft.

“When we were growing up, these places were everything. You played gigs, you learned to handle a crowd, and you made your name. I remember playing the Marquee Club with Guns N' Roses. That night changed everything for them in the UK. These venues aren’t just buildings—they’re launchpads. Go to the gig. Buy a ticket. Stand at the front.” — Bruce John Dickinson, WaterBear Founder

WaterBear’s relationship with grassroots venues runs year-round. In Sheffield and Brighton, students perform midweek shows at local venues to help build footfall and offer support during quieter trading periods. The college supports these events financially by covering entry costs and, where possible, bar spend—making sure the venues benefit from both audiences and income. This model is central to WaterBear’s belief that education must be mutual, relevant and rooted in the real world.

In Brighton, the college recently expanded with the launch of a second space: the WaterBear Music Bar on Manchester Street, joining the original WaterBear Venue as a hub for new artists to perform, collaborate and grow.

"We’ve been working with local venues for years—putting on shows, helping them stay open, and giving students a proper understanding of what the industry really looks like. We’re not dropping in from the outside—this is our ecosystem too. If venues disappear, so do the opportunities. For bands, for crew, for the whole circuit." — Greg Archer, Careers & Industry Manager, WaterBear Sheffield

The Keeping Music Live campaign speaks directly to the lived experience of artists at the start of their careers.

"We’re playing festivals next year, but without smaller venues we’d never have been ready. You learn by doing. You make mistakes. You grow. You can’t skip that part." — Brad Widdowson, Sundress / WaterBear student

"You don’t go from your bedroom to a stadium. You need to play rooms where you mess up, learn what works, and find your sound. AI has its place, but it won’t replace the magic of a band in a room when it all clicks." — Adam Bushell, WaterBear Co-founder

"At Studio 45, we nurture the first gig and the second gig. That journey—building confidence, learning stagecraft—starts in grassroots venues. You don’t go straight to the O2."— Jimi Wheelwright, Tigercub / Brighton Electric

"Joseph’s Well in Leeds was the first proper venue we travelled to. That was our breakthrough moment, and I’ll never forget it."

— Rabea Massaad, Vower / Frog Leap

For more information on WaterBear and the Keeping Music Live tour, visit www.waterbear.org.uk.