Vault Festival will be shut down after funding issues (Picture: Laura Evans, Vault Creative Arts)
Artists in the UK have shared their devastation as beloved venue Vault, home to Vault Festival, announced it will close for good.
The organisers had hoped to relocate to another London venue after concluding a decade-long run at Waterloo’s edgy Leake St area last year but funding fell through.
This news comes after they confirmed a new multi-space home in the heart of the UK’s capital, set to open later this year.
‘It is with immense sadness that we announce the closure of Vault Festival and the cancellation of plans for our new London home, after failing to secure the funding required to continue,’ a statement on the website read.
Fans of the space have taken to X to lament the loss, expressing out it is a blow to particularly up-and-coming artists whom Vault has always championed.
The emotional outpouring for the venue mixed with genuine concern at the rate that smaller arts and entertainment spaces have begun to disappear from the UK.
The venue has been home to emerging talent for a decade (Picture: Laura Evans, Vault Creative Arts)
Gig-goers lamented the loss to the British music scene (Picture: Kate Hockenhull Photography)
‘You do have to wonder where all of the “emerging” artists are meant to emerge when all the grassroots schemes are gone,’ tweeted theatre designer Cory Ship.
Reece McMahon shared: ‘This is an immeasurable loss to the sector and to the generations of early-career artists who won’t get to use this platform to get up the first rung on what year on year is an increasingly impossible ladder to climb. We’re going backwards as an industry and it’s devastating.’
West End star Natasha Hodgson pleaded: ‘This is horrendous. Please, someone out there must be a millionaire who wants to see British theatre and comedy thrive – surely there must be a way.’
‘I don’t know where artists will go to try and play and figure it out. Feels like when I arrived in London it was teaming with scratch nights and festivals and Vault was queen among them as a stepping stone, a launch pad, imperfect and worryingly damp but a chance. Sad day!’ added Holly Robinson.
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Despite having secured a new location, a blended fundraising strategy, and plans to reopen, organisers explained that their primary funding could not be secured.
Vault was not able to find alternative funding before having to completely shut its doors to fans and artists alike after 10 years, with numerous redundancies and event cancellations.
In the statement, they revealed plans for two five-week annual festivals which would have hosted up to 300 unique shows and over new 1,700 artists.
Andy George, CEO, director and co-founder, said: ‘We are devastated, we’re proud, and we’re grieving. 12 years ago, we set out with a mission to make the creative industries of the UK more diverse, more experimental, more inclusive, more joyful, and more embracing of the talents and ideas that emerging artists have to offer.
They said it was a ‘devastating’ announcement to make (Picture: Laura Evans, Vault Creative Arts)
Vault supports smaller artists yet to burst onto the scene (Picture: Kate Hockenhull Photography)
‘I feel extremely proud that we’ve achieved that mission through our work and that we are leaving the creative industry in a different place to how we found it. We had an exceptional team, we had a fantastic new home, and we had the vision of how to get there.
‘To come so close but ultimately fall short is agonising. We are grieving what could have been and what will be lost for future generations. I am certain that the impact from the loss of VAULT Festival will be felt across the entire UK creative sector for years to come.
‘The irony that our platform that sought to support artists who have been failed and disenfranchised by the current funding, education, and institutional systems ultimately being undone by that very same system is not lost. Something needs to be done.
‘Our journey may have come to an end, but I implore others to pick up the baton, to fight the fight, and to be creative, courageous and kind. Make art, make trouble, make change.’
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