New nationwide initiative to open up grassroots music venues during the day for education and community programs

CAN YOU CIC IT?, the Community Interest Company that runs Independent Venue Week in the UK, is very excited to announce the launch of Yes We Can – a new development, education and community platform, that highlights, promotes and delivers a diverse range of activities taking place during the day across grassroots venues around the country.

Backed by Arts Council England, Yes We Can is a combination of original initiatives such as the Yes We Can Be education program and Soundcheck Sessions as well as working with a range of specialist partners who are leaders in their field. Many are already providing community-based activities in fields encompassing the Early Years, Young People, as well as LGBTQ+ and Deaf, Disabled & Neurodiverse People initiatives supporting Mental Health and Well Being and the Older Generation.

These launch partners are: Dr Jen Wills Lamacq, Attitude is Everything, Drake Music, Stay Up Late, Help Musicians UK and Come Play With Me. Alongside these partners are music industry trade bodies who will be delivering sector expertise for the Yes We Can Be education program including, Featured Artists Coalition, Ivors Academy, Musicians Union, Music Managers Forum, Association of Independent Promoters, Music Publishers Association, Music Producers Guild and the Association of Independent Music.

Yes We Can will bring this activity into venues during the day, throughout the year across the country, driving more of this additional activity into venues so they can sustain themselves alongside live music and grow their relationships with other groups in their local community as well as around the country.

Presenting a rolling series of events, as well as promoting the wider impact of these organisations’ work, Yes We Can will actively seek to build new community-based partnerships – encouraging IVW venues to open their doors to their local communities, diversify their programming and cement their position as cultural hubs for learning, creativity, arts and culture.

Sybil Bell, Founder Independent Venue Week & Yes We Can –
“Through initiatives like Independent Venue Week, the importance of small independent venues to the UK’s music scene has become widely recognised. However, we’ve always believed that these spaces play an even more significant role in the social fabric of the UK. They’re not only a focal point for music and the arts, they’re outlets for entire communities up and down the country.

Yes We Can provides a spotlight and program for this hugely important but less-celebrated work to encourage more of it to go on in small music venues up and down the country – whether that’s for parent and toddler groups, for the elderly, for young people or in support of LGBTQ+ or disabled people. Our goal is to encourage even more venues to open their doors and embrace a range of inclusive, community-based activities, giving people the chance to come together, in person, and develop relationships and skills to enrich their lives, all with music at its heart.”

Yes We Can will officially launch today, Thursday 2 December 2021, via a special event at The Smokehouse venue in Ipswich. The event will hear from Sybil Bell, Founder of Yes We Can and Independent Venue Week and Joe Bailey, Founder of The Smokehouse and Outloud Music about their work with young people in the Ipswich area and Adrian Cooke from Arts Council England on why they felt it was important to back this particular project.

This will be followed by an In Conversation hosted by Nadine Artois, DJ and co-founder of Pxssy Palace – the club night and collective that prioritises womxn and queer/intersex/trans people of colour. Nadine will be speaking with Joe Hastings of leading music mental health charity, Help Musicians, Jane Dyball from Attitude is Everything, the main music industry charity championing the deaf, disabled and neurodivergent community and Catherine Bullough who is the Producer of Community at Britten Pears Arts.

Claire Mera-Nelson, Director, Music, Arts Council England, said –
“As we move beyond lockdown and into a recovery phase, the importance of independent, grassroots music venues to the local and artistic communities they serve is greater than ever. Independent Venue Week has been a vital ingredient in the success of our grassroots live music sector, showcasing our brilliant independent venues and artists across the country each year; but now their work will become even more important as they move to deliver year-round development, education and community programmes on a national basis through the Yes We Can initiative.”

“Thanks to the National Lottery we’re pleased to be able to support Yes We Can and the grassroots venues it benefits across the country. We’re excited by the opportunities this work will open up to venues, artists and communities alike – helping to explore new ways to re-energise spaces, attract new audiences, provide innovative platforms for a new generation of artists and support venues to become even more inclusive and further cement themselves within the cultural and social fabric of the places in which they are based.”

Running both digitally and directly in venues in person, Yes We Can will drive more of this additional activity into venues, highlighting why they are cultural hubs for learning, creativity, arts and culture more widely, connecting like-minded people in their local community, all on a national scale.

The initial program of activity will be running through the UK up to the end of May 2022 and details can be found on the CAN YOU CIC IT website: www.canyoucicit.com/yeswecan/