Community Models for Music Venues and Platforms

Last updated: May 2024

What are possible models for community-supported and community-governed spaces for music, art, and culture? DIY music venues are constantly under threat of raised rents and shuttering down. Most musicians are not able to make a living wage, especially from current streaming and royalty models.

Emerging models for community venues and platforms may provide alternative cooperative frameworks for supporting music, culture, and creative workers. Through experimentation and collective organizing, building sustainable infrastructure and creating systemic change may be possible.

</3 denotes that this space or community may be now defunct.
* denotes that this space or community is currently in development, at the time of writing this. 

Real Estate: Venues and Community Spaces 

» Music Venue Trust (UK) | musicvenuetrust.com 

  • “A UK Registered Charity which acts to protect, secure and improve UK Grassroots Music Venues for the benefit of venues, communities and upcoming artists.” 

  • “MVT was created with the long-term goal of making it into a sort of National Trust for music venues; an organization that could purchase the buildings and lease them to people who would continue to run them as venues in perpetuity. As things stand they do not represent a great investment, so intervention in the market is required if they are to be saved.”

» Community Benefit Society (CBS) 

  • UK-based model where the community owns the venue and can be issued community shares. Can potentially buy the building as a community.

» Sister Midnight (London) * | sistermidnight.org 

  • Lewisham-based initiative to open a community-owned live music venue.

» The Exchange (UK) | exchangebristol.com 

  • “Exchange is a community-owned, not for profit, independent music venue.” – Bristol’s first community-owned venue.

» SODAA (London) </3 | instagram.com/sodaa.club 

  • “A community developing a decentralized governance model for a music & arts venue in London.”

» The Stud (SF) | studsf.com

  • Gay bar in San Francisco, first worker-owned cooperative nightclub in the US. Seeking new space since closing during COVID and reopening in 2024. 

» NYC Real Estate Investment Cooperative (NYC REIC) </3 | nycreic.com 

  • “A group of over 500 New Yorkers who are pooling their money and power to secure space for community, small business, and cultural use in NYC. Consistent with the principles and spirit of the cooperative movement, NYC REIC makes long-term, stabilizing, and transformative investments for the mutual benefit of our member-owners and our community.”

» Real Estate Investment Trusts / Coops | antidisplacement.org/tool/community-investment-trusts

  • “Community investment trusts allow neighborhood residents or other stakeholders to pool resources to purchase community-owned real estate. Community investment trusts are for-profit entities that help communities invest in themselves and secure space for small businesses and other cooperatively controlled uses. Investment trusts and cooperatives can help residents build equity and wealth while also providing small business owners with affordable space and opportunities to remain in place.”

» Community Land Trusts for Commercial Properties | allincities.org/toolkit/commercial-community-land-trusts 

  • “A community land trust (CLT) is typically a nonprofit corporation that owns property and holds it in perpetuity for the benefit of the community. In the classic CLT model, homes are sold at below-market rates to low- and moderate-income families who typically would not be able to buy market-rate homes, and the CLT leases the land to the owner on a long-term basis. The resale value of the home is capped to maintain affordability while enabling the owners to build assets and wealth. 

  • The CLT model has also been adapted for commercial use for the benefit of independent, locally owned businesses. In gentrifying neighborhoods, non-profit organizations and small businesses operated by people of color and low-income entrepreneurs are at risk of displacement due to rising rents. In these neighborhoods, commercial CLTs can serve as a strategy to protect affordability, support entrepreneurs of color, and retain local businesses and organizations that represent and foster the unique cultural character of the community.” 

» Cultural Land Trust (British Columbia) * | culturallandtrust.ca 

  • “A community model for artists and cultural organizations—especially low-income, disabled, LGBTQ2IA+ and BIPOC—that opens pathways to sustainable stewardship of cultural spaces, rent stability and collective wealth, for artists and cultural organizations in B.C. to have collective stewardship of land and buildings.”

» Creative Land Trust (London) | creativelandtrust.org 

  • “Creative Land Trust has been established to secure long term, affordable space for artists and creatives. A social enterprise that will own the buildings in which studios are housed so they can be used by artists and makers in perpetuity.”

Platforms 

» Funkwhale | funkwhale.audio  

  • Decentralized and federated audio platform. Free and open-source.

» Resonate | resonate.coop 

  • “Community-owned music streaming service — a multi-stakeholder platform co-operative, democratically governed by members: artists, listeners, and workers.”

» Ampled </3 (2020-2023) 

  • “Cooperative of artists, workers, and community members. Web platform that allows music artists to be supported by their community with direct, recurring payments.”

» Mirlo * | mirlo.space 

  • “Collectively owned and managed” platform to “directly support musicians.” “An online platform designed for musicians to upload, share, and sell digital music directly to their listeners.”

» Nina Protocol | ninaprotocol.com 

  • “A modern platform and toolkit for independent music. On Nina, artists maintain 100% ownership of everything – sales, music, and context. Nina will never take a cut on digital music sales.”

» jam.coop * | jam.coop 

  • “A co-operative music platform, 100% run by and for the benefit of musicians, fans and the people who make it.”

» Ampwall * | ampwall.com 

  • “A platform for bands, musicians, artists, fans, and the scenes that they build together. DIY musician owned and built in NYC. Ampwall is a public benefit company and committed to supporting the arts.”

» patrontape * | patrontape.com 

  • “A community music streaming platform. Patrontape is a not-for-profit collective with a mission to build a streaming service founded on the values of community, creativity and fairness at the core of independent and grassroots music scenes. For listeners, we offer a pay-what-you-can subscription to access all the music on the platform, with each monthly payment distributed to artists proportional to the time spent listening to their music. For artists and labels, we offer free and unmediated uploads to the platform with direct revenue payments, and the ability to set splits on songs between multiple artist & label accounts.

» tone.audio * | tone.audio 

  • “An open source, artist & listener owned music listening service.”

» radio free fedi | radiofreefedi.net 

  • “Consent, agency and artist celebrating community radio from the fediverse.” 

Etc,

» Comradery | comradery.co 

  • Like a worker coop version of Patreon. “A digital platform where creators can receive monthly payments from supporters, and optionally give those supporters exclusive access to posts and media. A worker cooperative democratically owned and controlled equally by all the creators in the organization. “One worker, one vote” philosophy, where each creator owns a non sellable share of the cooperative, participates in democratic decision making, governance, and day-to-day operation tasks.”

» Faircamp | simonrepp.com/faircamp 

  • “A static site generator for audio producers.” A Bandcamp-like template for self-hosting.

» Soundmirror (MA) | soundmirror.com 

  • Employee-owned classical music recording and post-production company.

» New York Music Co-op | nymusiccoop.com 

  • Teacher-owned worker cooperative for private music lessons.

» Groupmuse | groupmuse.com 

  • “A worker- and musician-owned cooperative seeking to uplift artists and strengthen broader community bonds through live, intimate performances of historically-rooted music.”

» Moog | moogmusic.com 

  • Synthesizer company based in Asheville, North Carolina. Used to be employee-owned (2015 - 2023) until it was acquired by inMusic. RIP! </3

» United Musicians and Allied Workers (UMAW) | weareumaw.org 

  • Unions of music workers. “Has organized tens of thousands of music workers around issues such streaming royalties, record contracts, safer venue guidelines, artist payments at SXSW, merch cuts, and more.” – e.g. the Living Wage for Musicians Act.

» Community radio <3 

  • Community radio is great!