This week, Rolling Stone magazine published an interview with Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy.
“That change is going to come,” said Nandy. “We need to make it a more seamless process and more similar to how it was back in the day,”
Voices from across the music sector, from musicians, performers and live music workers to instrument makers and teachers, have spoken out about the amount of post-Brexit challenges they are now facing.
As Rolling Stone notes, the challenges include, “extensive networks of visas, work permits and carnets.”
This intervention from Nandy comes after the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) responded to our Face The Music campaign in October last year.
It also comes weeks after Sheffield Central MP Abtisam Mohamed spoke about our Face The Music campaign with Chris Bryant MP, Minister of State for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism.
"This is great to see from Lisa Nandy, but we cannot afford this to just be words,” said European Movement’s Campaign Manager, Richard Kilpatrick.
“The sector needs to see real and tangible progress made on this as soon as possible."
Our Face The Music campaign has long been calling for the UK government to find a solution to the issues facing musicians who want to tour Europe after Brexit.
The campaign is calling for two concrete steps to improve the outlook for the UK’s live music sector:
- Negotiated and reciprocal agreements to ease travel for UK musicians
- A review of the restrictions on how many days artists and support workers can work in the EU within a 180-day period.
For the sake of our world-leading live music sector, put pressure on the UK government to take action.