Worried no bands will book your practice room?
Think your space might not be up to scratch?
Are you prepared for a rent increase?
Running any kind of business, there are risks associated with rising costs such as rent, wages and bills. Sarah Evans at the UK's Base Studios said: "Our main issue is rent potentially doubling and the fixed rate for our electricity has increased four fold". However, although spaces are far flung and mostly focussed on serving local clients, many share similar issues.
The music rehearsal space sector
The sector can be characterised by independent and mostly un-connected entities. They are individually developed in operation, styling and pricing often the result of the demands of the local musician community. Their strength lies in their multitude providing greater choices for musicians.
More by accident than design, this has meant the sector has no central representative body. The resulting fragmentation however does not mean music rehearsal spaces do not share common challenges. They are simply not communicated.
Here at Bandspace we have carried out three surveys of the UK music rehearsal space sector. The results have helped inform our website. The findings can be found here:
It is likely the live sector and recording studios are more dominant in artists' careers. It is in these areas where musicians derive their income, whereas renting a music rehearsal space in the short term is maybe seen as a necessary expense to achieve hard-won income. However, music rehearsal spaces continue to be an important place for musicians to hone their performance, communication and ensemble skills.
Worried no bands will book your practice room?
Our 2022 survey findings suggest 70% of musicians are using a space to prepare to perform at local gigs or simply to enjoy making music with friends.
It follows many music rehearsal spaces are therefore reliant on local, semi-professional, enthusiasts hiring their practice rooms. Musicians' disposable income, sometimes earned from playing local gigs, perhaps pay for their rehearsal sessions.
Rehearsal spaces represent an entry point for musicians to the wider music ecosystem in the form of live performance careers and recording. For many musicians using a music rehearsal space is the start of their career.
Early career musicians have already learnt to competently play their instrument and perhaps begun playing with other musicians.
They require somewhere to rehearse to build their live set. By the time they are playing live, they have begun to stimulate demand amongst audiences. Musicians using these spaces, together, help create local scenes.
Music rehearsal spaces, perhaps more than live music venues and recording studios, have a greater footfall of musicians meaningfully using their space. Especially those spaces with multiple practice rooms visited by numerous bands. Having a captive audience of musicians makes it easy to market additional services such as retail, repairs and refreshments. Such additional services will represent a convenience for many musicians, thus making the space more attractive.
Music spaces are often located in a converted building, not custom built for the purpose of rehearsing bands. This means there may be compromises in its layout, the acoustics and its location.
High sound levels and vehicles coming and going late at night predicates the location of the space to be some distance away from residential areas. Consequently the location may require public transport or a private vehicle to get to, thus making access an important issue.
Music rehearsal spaces usually do not figure in local authority or city cultural development plans. Whereas the development of spaces where music is presented to the public takes precedence. In such plans, at best, the allocation of a rehearsal space is a subsidiary to a performance or presentation space.
These are common challenges faced by music rehearsal spaces. Not helped by a wider ignorance of the significant role they play within the wider music industry.
Think your space might not be up to scratch?
Owners of a music rehearsal space put in as much effort as possible in maintaining attractive practice rooms for rehearsing musicians. There are inevitably compromises. There are also many challenges out of their hands.
In 2022 PRS for Music, a body that collects royalties for songwriters, reported royalties from live performances of music fell roughly 30% in 2021.
The Music Venue Trust also report many grassroots venues are at risk of closure. Pubs, bars and venues perhaps find it more profitable to offer food or sports TV to their customers rather than risk the expense of hosting a live band.
Where audiences exist for live music, an appetite for the familiar such as tribute acts or open mic spots, is an easier option. The competition for people's time and money represents a risk affecting demand for live music.
Breakages
For those musicians using a practice room, occasionally a piece of kit goes wrong or is broken during rehearsal. Even more infrequently, the musician(s) responsible may not tell those on the desk of the fault. A broken snare skin, a blown guitar amp or faulty mic stand needs to be reported so staff can repair or replace in advance of the following users.
Spaces can be busy at times, often turning bands away who are seeking a last minute rehearsal slot. If staff are alerted before the next user arrives they can deal with it quickly. Kit does and can break, and being forewarned helps staff run an efficient and safe space. Sticking a notice up on a wall in each room lets users know your intentions. Apart from the inconvenience of having to repair or replace the piece of kit, breakages are an expense to the music space.
Pirate Studios
Pirate Studios started out in Bristol in the UK in 2014 and has grown worldwide. It raised $20 million from Talis Capital, a London-based venture capital firm, to operate 24/7 self-service music studios.
In 2022 it boasted over 700 practice rooms across 27 music rehearsal spaces in the UK, five in the US, three in Germany and one in Ireland. It has nine locations in London alone, which represents potential competition to those music rehearsal spaces with limited funds wishing to expand. With three more spaces earmarked in the US it is clearly meeting a demand.
Obviously the space is a very important issue. Finding a suitable building to start a music rehearsal space with the potential to expand can be a challenge. There is a greater potential for the business to grow if the building has more rooms in which to expand.
Closed spaces
Although somewhat dated, our Survey of London's music rehearsal spaces in 2006, suggested there had been a steady increase in their number since 1976. The results found nearly three new music rehearsal spaces are established every two years. They tended to be concentrated in deprived areas where rent prices were lower.
The survey did not account for those that ceased trading during this two-year period. Although anecdotally, since then a number of spaces have closed in the UK:
Alaska Studios, London
Altered Studios, Bexhill
Apache Road Studios, Bristol
Artisan Music Studios, Stoke
Backstreet, Islington, London
OTR Studios, Hackney, London
Stomp Studios, Hackney, London
Dream Recording & Rehearsal Studios, Swindon, Wilts
Aardvark Music Services, Kent
Diamond Studios, Wakefield
Dixon Street Studios, Glasgow
Are you prepared for a rent increase?
Consultants Sound Diplomacy, working for the UK government culture department, looked in to the challenges facing music rehearsal spaces in 2021. In its publication Music Cities Resilience Handbook published in 2020 it found rent and business rates (taxes) made up the greatest proportion of operating costs and increases due to urban regeneration. Not surprisingly it was seen as the primary cause for closures.
It also found rehearsal session rates had declined and/or stagnated compared to 20 years ago, not helped by a reduction in record label budgets and in turn demand for studio services. Rehearsal spaces had been the most vulnerable during the COVID-19 pandemic as there was no viable alternative to a physical service and a greater proportion of operating costs for space rental.
There have of course been technological changes in the sector in the past two decades and opportunities for business. Home recording, online booking and live streaming have all, and continue, to change the sector. The expense of buying kit, for example, for live streaming may pay off. The outlay in buying air conditioning for enclosed spaces during the COVID-19 pandemic has been a benefit to musicians.
Sound Diplomacy reported studios have diversified their revenue streams by introducing new services. Rehearsal spaces were more profitable than recording studios with an average annual gross income of £132k given the number of rooms available and the versatility of clients and services. It found there remains a desire for better coordination amongst rehearsal spaces and the wider sector as a whole. By sharing experiences and finding common issues can surely go some way to strengthening music rehearsal spaces.
Another challenge that is raised regularly is the topic of cancellations and refund policies. At Pure Rehearsal Studios we moved to an automated 'pay in advance' business model which has led to cancellations to now run at less than 3%, so we can plan staffing and maintenance far more reliably than before. This means we can spend more time looking after the bands and less time chasing after bookings.