Bandspace carried out a snapshot survey from December 2022 to February 2023 to see how musicians use music rehearsal spaces. The questions were based on a survey undertaken in 2021, answers to which were compared to reveal any trends. Previous survey results can be found here.
We suggest our findings should be seen in the context of the local ecology that shapes the nature of a music rehearsal space. Each space is unique, often determined by its users, available buildings, income streams and other variables. Therefore, drawing comparisons between individual music rehearsal spaces should be carefully considered. The findings offer a generalised overview of the UK’s independent music rehearsal space sector.
We added more questions after receiving suggestions from last year's respondents. In addition, we have added a brief review of the past year, supported by our conclusions from the survey results.
Findings
We asked six questions receiving 80 responses from music rehearsal spaces, representing around 18% of the UK’s network of independent music rehearsal spaces. Last year we received 50 responses to a similar survey. Although we urge caution in drawing too firm a conclusion from our findings, they nonetheless provide a starting point for further research.
1. Roughly, what is the end purpose of musicians using your music rehearsal space?
Answers to this question suggest half the groups were using an hourly/session practice room in preparation to perform local gigs. A further third were making music for ‘fun’ with friends or rehearsing prior to making a recording. A smaller number were rehearsing prior to touring.
Income derived from professional music touring or recording plays a small part in most music rehearsal spaces.
Comparing the results to the previous year's survey reveal small increases in the number of groups rehearsing before recording and other purposes such as dance, podcast, photography, etc. There was a small decrease in the number of sessions where friends were rehearsing for 'fun'. However, we suggest the small differences in proportions are an insignificant variation to last year's survey due to the larger sample size (outlined in the table below).
Survey year | Preparing to play local gigs | Rehearsal prior to recording | Bunch of mates doing it for fun | Pre-production prior to touring | Other purpose |
2022 | 49% | 16% | 16% | 12% | 7% |
2021 | 50% | 14% | 20% | 12% | 4% |
2. Generally speaking, how do musicians book your music practice room?
Over two thirds of music rehearsal spaces reported they received bookings to their practice rooms using either an online source or telephone. The remaining third of bookings came from email, visiting and other ways.
Comparing the results to the previous year's survey show there has been a small decrease in spaces reporting the use of online booking. A small increase in bookings when musicians are visiting suggest a variance in repeat and block bookings.
Again, the small differences in proportions are an insignificant variation to last year's survey due to the larger sample size (outlined in the table below).
Survey year | Online | Phone | Visit | Other booking | |
2022 | 35% | 35% | 13% | 10% | 7% |
2021 | 42% | 33% | 14% | 6% | 5% |
3. Approximately how many cancellations or no shows do you receive per week? (session-based spaces only not lockout/residency rooms)
This question was requested in last year's survey by respondents following the effects of the global pandemic. We also felt this an important question to determine how common cancellations are in affecting the business of running a music rehearsal space.
Any cancellation, especially late cancellations, can bring insecurity to a business. For spaces with a smaller number of available practice rooms, cancellations can represent a serious challenge. Just over half the respondents reported one or two cancelled sessions a week. Over 80% of respondents said they took between one and five weekly cancellations.
A small number of music spaces reported a high number of cancellations (between 5 - 20 weekly cancellations). One space ran 16 practice rooms so inevitably it received on average more weekly cancellations than a music space with fewer rooms. Three respondents cited between 5 to 10 cancellations per week. Each of these had between them 4 and 17 practice rooms. The questionnaire did not seek to find out how these spaces handled this higher than average cancellation rate nor users' reasons for cancelling. We did not ask if these were late cancellations, for example, within 48 hours of the session start.
Number of cancellations per week | Spaces reporting this number of cancellations | Percentage of spaces who responded |
0 | 10 | 12% |
up to 2 | 42 | 53% |
between 2 - 5 | 23 | 28% |
between 5 - 10 | 3 | 4% |
between 10 - 20 | 2 | 3% |
4. Estimate how many bookings in an average week you received over the past year per room and what percentage of those were block bookings (3 or more)?
Over the past year, 29 of the 80 responding music spaces (36%) reported on average each individual practice room was booked 10 or more times each week. This was by far the largest single segment to this question. A second and variable segment of 38 respondents (48%) said each room was booked between 3 to 7 times per week.
Of these bookings, we found nearly half the spaces (49%) said 30% of bookings were blocked booked (three or more sessions). A third of the respondents said 10% were weekly block bookings (26 spaces). Three respondents reported all their weekly room bookings were block-booked. Two of these respondents are based in the US.
It's interesting to compare results from UK spaces with those from rehearsal spaces from around the world. Nightingale Studios in California has 25 lockout rooms and 8 hourly rooms. These are all 100% blocked booked. TK Rehearsal Studios also in California is a lockout studio service operating over 300 rooms in three locations. All its rooms are lockout rooms so are 100% block booked.
5. How do you think users find out about your rehearsal space for the first time?
| Word of mouth | Internet search | Other | Passing by/reside locally | Poster/leaflet |
Number | 78 | 57 | 14 | 10 | 6 |
Percentage | 98% | 71% | 18% | 13% | 8% |
Overwhelmingly, 98% of respondents reported first time users find out about their music rehearsal space by word of mouth. Nearly three quarters of respondents also thought first time users found their music space through a web search.
Undoubtedly word-of-mouth is one of the most effective forms of marketing, inferring a positive recommendation.
Caution should be taken in drawing any conclusions in these statistics - responses are not from first-time users.
6. In your opinion what are the biggest challenges in running a music rehearsal space?
Answers to this open question did not seek to assess the depth of the reported challenges, but rather their range. The reported challenges faced by music rehearsal spaces can be split in to the following four areas:
Managing the business
Challenges associated with business overheads was commonly reported. Utility bills including the increase in the cost of electricity was mentioned as the major challenge for nearly a third of respondents (29%). A quarter cited rent/lease costs associated with not owning the property was an issue too, followed by business rates (23%) and insurances (15%). A sample of the comments were:
We can't increase our prices by 480% to cover the same increase in our utility costs.
A challenge is keeping the costs down for musicians whilst trying to pay your own personal rent and bills.
With rehearsals generally being such a low income industry it's hard to staff successfully at times due to cancellations and long hours. I've had to pad out the studios income with other aspects of the business such as the recording studio, PA system hire, repairs and small shop for spares etc.
There is only so much you can increase prices to cover costs before it becomes unaffordable for bands, or they rehearse less often. Independent studios are often self-funded and an integral part of the music industry as a whole. It's where all bands start out before they grow.
As the cost of living bites the number of gigging bands reduces.
Other challenges reported were staffing issues (6%), work/life balance (5%), lack of government support (4%), collecting payments (1%), meeting loan repayments (1%) and diversifying income streams (1%).
Managing assets
Maintaining equipment, repairs and replenishing with spares was the biggest issue (31%). Upkeep, decorating and maintenance of the fabric of the building was mentioned (9%), alongside cleaning and keeping rooms hygienic (9%). Available parking was a lesser issue overall (3%).
One respondent said: "If the business were about attracting bands, cleaning rooms, replacing blown speakers and maintaining the studios for bands then the amount of stress that we'd have would be reduced by 95%, but sadly the overwhelming amount of challenges is from the lack of government regulation and the opaqueness in the rules that surround small businesses in the UK."
Bookings
Cancellations, no shows and weather-related cancellations resulting in non-payment were a significant issue affecting overall bookings (25%). Competition from other studios and leisure opportunities were a lesser challenge (10%). A small number of spaces reported they did not have enough rooms or different types of rooms available during peak periods (9%). Other issues cited included a lack of consistent or seasonal bookings (6%), room turnover meaning shorter sessions (5%), finding suitable premises (3%) and a reduction in the number of bands wanting to use a rehearsal space (3%). A sample of the comments were:
We have maintained the cautionary approach adopted during the pandemic of leaving a half hour gap between room bookings which has resulted in fewer hours being available to book out, which is a challenge financially.
Finding warehouses in industrial areas close enough to major cities where they will give you a long term lease as they are typically looking to sell to residential holdings at the moment.
People are generally less wealthy and rehearsals can be seen as a luxury. We don’t want to price ourselves into extinction.
Relations
Although this was a less reported challenge, positive relations with users of a music rehearsal space is important (5%). Time to market the space, including using social media, was mentioned too (4%). Not reporting broken kit (4%), missing kit (4%), bands not arriving on time (1%) and noise complaints from neighbours (1%) are included in this section. One respondent said: "The biggest challenge recently is overcoming the loss of many of my steady customers who built their own studios during Covid and have not returned."
Conclusion
The findings to our Survey 2023 - Music Rehearsal Spaces suggest most musicians using music rehearsal spaces in the UK are likely to be semi-professional or amateur preparing to play local gigs or mates rehearsing for fun. Many musicians using a professional practice room do so as a leisure pursuit with no intention to perform in public. If this is indeed the case, it is likely the independent network of spaces in the UK is dependent on musicians' personal incomes. Organising and paying for a session suggests a healthy level of motivation amongst rehearsing musicians.
There continues to be a mix of ways in which musicians book a practice room with online and telephone booking the most common. Most individual practice rooms (84%) are booked at least 3 times per week. This suggests there is collectively a considerable amount of unused capacity amongst rehearsal spaces. Further work could be undertaken to compare booking rates over successive survey years. Nearly half the spaces said 30% of their sessions were block booked. The significance of positive personal recommendations and a music space maintaining a web presence remains.
Dependent on the quantity of practice rooms and local circumstances, we suggest a cancellation rate of between 1 to 5 cancelled sessions per week is probably the norm. It is the first time we have asked this question of music rehearsal spaces so there is no comparison data available. This question deserves further investigation to monitor and compare cancellation rates over successive surveys.
Business overheads (utility bills, rent, property taxes/rates and insurances) was a major challenge for music rehearsal spaces. Maintaining equipment and the impact of cancelled bookings also took a significant toll on the cost of running a space.
One astute respondent said: "The largest challenges I've found are the work life balance of the managing director vs costs of staffing a venue. As an elevation to this, spaces would need a critical mass of 5 - 6 studios to comfortably cover a FTE wage who could actually take proper pressure from the shoulders of a studio founder. Fundamentally, I'd wager many studio owners end up locked in working FOR their studios, rather than ON their studios. This will mean many rehearsal spaces will never scale beyond their original business plan as their profit-making potential is limited to how many bands they can simultaneously cater for during peak hours. This also leaves a huge gap in the market for franchised spaces to swoop in and saturate an area with availability at peak times, damaging all independent studios in an area."
Our research reveals there is small number of spaces specialising in professional tour pre-production, residencies and lockouts including large-scale production work for international touring artists. These spaces are not represented in this survey.
Methodology
The survey was conducted on hourly-rate rehearsal spaces via an online questionnaire on the Bandspace website. The survey was launched on 7 December 2022 and closed on 24 February 2023, lasting 11 weeks. We received 80 responses, 70 based in the UK.
At the time of the survey we estimated there were 398 spaces in the UK. We conclude the survey received a good response rate from UK spaces at 18% strengthening our conclusions. A good survey response rate ranges between 5% and 30%.
To promote the survey a bulk email was sent three times to 403 email addresses on the Bandspace database. 306 of these emails were opened representing an open rate of 76%. This was an improvement on last year's open rate at 50%. This may be due to fine tuning our target audience. Online sources suggest a good email open rate should be between 17-28%. We therefore conclude the email open rate to the survey was excellent. The response rate could be improved.
We made a number of posts on the Bandspace social media pages to promote the survey to music rehearsal spaces. We made 23 posts on the Bandspace Facebook page, and a smaller number of similar posts on the Facebook AIRRS group page and the Bandspace Instagram and Twitter accounts.
Respondents were asked to estimate the percentage proportions in their answers. The percentage results were aggregated and divided by the number of respondents for each question to give a mean average. Answers to these questions were reliant on estimates given by the music rehearsal spaces, rather than directly canvassing musicians using or intending to use a practice room.
Next time
Our surveys have questioned those who run/own music rehearsal spaces. It would be interesting to explore the relationship between a space and its users. We would need to seek the views of those running music rehearsal spaces and their musician-clients to do this.
An important area is the prevalence of new developments and activities such as the level of interest in live streaming, requests for instrument/equipment repairs, education & training activities and marketing initiatives.
Question 3 (cancellation question) did not ask the number of weekly sessions each respondent offered. Answers to this question will enable us to compare the number of cancellations against available sessions, giving a cancellation rate. Our next survey could also ask respondents to estimate how many were late cancellations eg, within 48 hrs.
To ease the task of completing the survey we could replace the answers to the challenges faced by music rehearsal spaces with tick boxes. To give a more dynamic representation we could measure the depth or rank for each challenge. Lastly, we could seek permission from respondents to attribute their answers in the published results blog.
Comparing results over successive surveys will help us to measure the health of the music rehearsal space sector.
Respondents
We appreciate the contributions to help us complete the 2023 Bandspace Survey from the following music rehearsal spaces.
ATMusic Group, Essex | Lockup Records, Ireland | RS Studios, Bristol | The Boom Rooms, Yorkshire |
ApolloAudio, Hertfordshire | Magnet Studios, Nottinghamshire | Redwall Studios, Manchester | The Cabin Rehearsal Rooms, Kent |
Arch Studios, London | Medway Sound Creative Space, Kent | Rewind Rehearsal Rooms, Leicestershire | The Hen House Rehearsal Studios, Australia |
Ashby Academy of Rock, Leicestershire | Mill Hill Music Complex, London | Robannas Studios, Birmingham | The Hive Rooms, Surrey |
Bad Habit Rehearsal Rooms, East Sussex | Milltown Studios, Derbyshire | Rock Hard Studios, Blackpool | The Hodge Podge, USA |
Bally Studios, London | Mushrooms, East Lothian | Rocking Horse Rehearsal Rooms, County Durham | The Music Shed, Inverness-shire |
Beardfire Studios, Ireland | Music City San Francisco, USA | Silver Lining Studios, Manchester | The Practice Roomz, Hertfordshire |
Brunswick Mill Studios, Manchester | New Cut Studios, Bristol | Simian Audio Rehearsal Rooms, Manchester | The Soundroom, Tyne and Wear |
C T Studios Rehearsal Room, Kent | Nightingale Studios, USA | Slane Studios, Ireland | Tonegarden Studios, Edinburgh |
Cellar Rooms Rehearsal Studios, West Midlands | Noiseboy Studios, Manchester | Sort Rehearsal Rooms, Liverpool | Tower Studios, Staffordshire |
Dubrek Studios, Derbyshire | Old Chapel Music, Leeds | Sound Inc Studios, Newcastle | Transmission Room, Glasgow |
Ellis Music Studios, Ayrshire | On Track Audio, Devon | Soundmagic Music Studio, Ayr, Scotland | Twenty Two Studios, Bedfordshire |
Fomo London Studio, London | Paulshalls Studios, Glasgow | Stage Studios, West Midlands | Unit 3 Studios, Devon |
Green Rooms, Wales | Plug Studios, Norfolk | Stalkers Studio, Northamptonshire | Unit 5 Studios, Nottinghamshire |
GreenRoomStudios (Witney), Oxfordshire | Pocket Money Studio, Somerset | Stave Rehearsal Rooms, Nottingham | Untapped Talent, Southampton |
Groove Studios, Lancashire | Powerstation Music, Gloucestershire | Storm Rehearsal Studios, London | Vibrations Studios, Yorkshire |
House of Mook, Leeds | Practice Rooms, Kent | Supanova Studios, Yorkshire | Volume Unlimited, London |
Jam on Top, West Yorkshire | Premier Rehearsal Studios, Australia | Super Unison Studios, London | Vulcan Studios, Liverpool |
JamPot Studios, Australia | Pure Rehearsal Studios, Southampton | TK Rehearsal, USA | Vulcan Studios, Merseyside |
K-Town Studios, London | RMS Studios, London | Taylor’s Shure 5 Studios, Manchester | Whitehouse Studios, Berkshire |
Annual review 2022
The Sound Diplomacy report in 2021 for the UK Government concluded rent and business rates make up the greatest proportion of operating costs. It said music spaces had witnessed exponential increases due to urban regeneration seen as the primary cause for studio closures. The results of the Bandspace survey would support this conclusion. The Sound Diplomacy report also suggested rehearsal spaces were more profitable than recording studios given the number of rooms available and the versatility of clients and services. Our survey suggests some rehearsal spaces are an entry point for musicians in making a recording.
Cancellations became an issue in 2022 exacerbated by rising costs, leading to some spaces reviewing their policies. Many spaces also reviewed their prices leading to small increases in hourly hire rates. A number of spaces complained about users' not reporting breakages and missing items from their practice rooms. The range and number of insurance policies available to spaces was another area of interest.
In September 2022 Urban Jungle insurers found they had seen a 228% increase in the number of home contents policies to now include musical instruments. Although they cannot definitely pinpoint the reason for this increase, they suggested it correlated to the Covid-19 pandemic and people possibly taking up a new hobby/instrument during the resulting lockdowns. This would suggest there are many instrumentalists possibly just needing the right encouragement to rehearse with others.
In 2022 a number of music rehearsal spaces in the UK closed. These included:
Campbell Road Studios, Brighton
North Road Music Centre, Bournemouth/Poole
PlugNPlay, Wiltshire
Rocket Park Studios, Cambridgeshire
Soundspace Studios, Gloucestershire
However, this was balanced by a number of new spaces and expansions:
Bear Music, Cambridgeshire
Coventry Rehearsal Rooms (changed ownership)
Dubrek Studios, Derbyshire moved location
Joy Diversion Rehearsal Rooms, Brighton
Load Street Studios, Worcestershire
Master Rhythm Studios, Oxfordshire expansion
Quay West Studios, Hampshire (moved to new home)
Stockport Studios, Manchester expansion
The Cave Music Project, Devon (found suitable premises now in fundraising phase)
White Noise Studios, Somerset expansion
Bandspace has been active in recruiting members to the Facebook group for the Association of Independent Rehearsal and Recording Studios. 104 new members signed up bringing the number of members to 267 (Jan 2023).
This concludes our survey and annual review of 2023.
Great work again Trevor. Thanks for pulling this together.