A youth music project has launched a £50,000 appeal to transform its venue.
The appeal will fund essential fire safety work, a new PA and lighting system, and soundproofing, rising to a fully equipped youth venue with sensory spaces, an employability café and training facilities at higher funding levels at the Jamming Station in Totnes.
The Devon venue known as the Town Mill “is part youth club, part rehearsal room, part training ground for the music industry” for young people. according to a press release. You can contribute to the appeal here.
Jamming Station co-director Jacqui Perks said: “For many of our young people, this is the place where they finally find their tribe. They come out of school carrying all that pressure and enter an environment where they can unwind among other young musicians who see them, understand them and accept them.
“In a band, everybody has a part to play. You have to listen to each other and keep going when something doesn’t work. Those are music skills, but they’re also life skills.”
It began in 2012 when Perks and fellow musicians Beth Coombes and Lee Friese-Greene started loading amps into cars each week because “their children had nowhere in Totnes to play”.
Former Jamming Station student Izzi Warburton has gone on to tour internationally as a session musician, with the likes of Primal Scream and Kula Shaker.
“I’m incredibly grateful to Jamming Station for what it gave me as an artist and producer. Since leaving when I was about 18, I’ve been fortunate enough to tour the world as a musician and work in studios across the UK,” he said.
“It is so important that young people have somewhere they can get off their phones, connect with each other properly and become absorbed in something creative. Making music is deeply educational, and I really hope people get behind this appeal so Jamming Station can give many more young people the opportunities it gave me.”
Meanwhile, The Music Venue Trust recently reported that that 30 grassroots music venues closed forever between July 2024 and July 2025 while 48 stopped operating as gig spaces.
Of those that survive, an average profit margin of just 2.5 per cent saw a staggering 53.8 per cent of grassroots venues report no profit in the last 12 months, with a loss of over 6,000 jobs (19 per cent) across the year.
The loss of venues in regional areas across the UK has already caused what many think of a “the complete collapse of touring” in recent years, while last year’s MVT report showed that the UK was losing one music venue every fortnight.
Last year saw the Royal Albert Hall in London become the first arena to commit to a LIVE ticket levy to help support grassroots venues, which sees £1 from every ticket sold invested back into the UK’s live music scene and helps smaller venues keep their doors open and for grassroots artists to tour. Huge names who have been supportive of the levy include Coldplay, Sam Fender and Katy Perry – who have all vowed to donate a portion of their tour revenues to support the grassroots sector.
Last May, Wolf Alice‘s Joff Oddie also joined industry leaders at a government hearing and insisted that not enough progress was being made in saving venues and new artists. It was reported that UK tour ticket contributions have raised £500,000 for grassroots music venues thanks to artists like Pulp and Mumford & Sons.
