Grassroots Venues Unite for Everywhere At Once Festival

A major partnership between Music Venue Trust and The National Lottery is bringing live music directly to hundreds of independent venues across the UK this June. The initiative, called Everywhere At Once, arrives during what would normally be Glastonbury weekend—the festival is taking a year off in 2026, creating space for this alternative celebration of grassroots music.

Rather than concentrating everything at a single location, the three-day event (June 26-28) will scatter performances across venues from Inverness down to Penzance. Expect a mix of established acts alongside emerging artists taking stages in local music spaces, all designed to remind audiences why their neighborhood venues matter.

"This is a hugely significant moment for the grassroots music sector," explained Mark Davyd, CEO of Music Venue Trust. "Seeing hundreds of venues come together across one weekend shows the true strength and scale of the network that underpins live music in the UK. Thanks to the support from The National Lottery, Everywhere At Once can pair visibility with meaningful, practical support, putting real investment directly into venues while amplifying their collective voice."

He added context on what makes this different: "Live music doesn't just happen in major cities or festival fields – it happens on our high streets, in our towns, and in the spaces communities rely on. This is what solidarity looks like in action, and it sets a powerful benchmark for what we can achieve when venues move forward together."

The partnership pulls in support from Save Our Scene and the Association of Independent Promoters as well. The National Lottery has backed grassroots venues since 2021, when the sector needed help recovering from pandemic shutdowns.

Alastair Ruxton, Chief Impact Officer at Allwyn (which operates The National Lottery), framed the festival as a chance to show how "grassroots music venues and promoters play in supporting new talent." According to organizers, the event will feature more stages and artists than any traditional summer festival field.

The weekend also carries a charitable angle. Donations collected across the three days will support War Child, Nordoff and Robbins, Help Musicians UK, and Teenage Cancer Trust.

George Fleming of Save Our Scene noted the timing: "In the summer things can sometimes seem quieter for venues, but Everywhere At Once proves that the grassroots never stands still. Venues across the country opening their doors for music and charity is a really powerful message."

Full artist lineups and venue details will drop later. The announcement comes as the UK grassroots sector faces genuine pressure—30 independent venues closed permanently between July 2024 and July 2025, and the remaining venues saw over half operating at a loss last year. That period also saw more than 6,000 jobs vanish from the live music workforce.

A proposed ticket levy, modeled on Premier League football's redistribution system, would funnel money from arena and stadium shows into smaller venues and touring artists. The government backed the idea in 2024, and there's now pressure on the industry to achieve 50 percent voluntary participation by June 2026—or face mandatory legislation.