A Status Quo member and hundreds of supporters have helped save a popular Kinross music venue from imminent closure.
Backstage at the Green Room will remain open following a Save Our Venues campaign which saw nearly £20,000 raised by more than 400 fans of the venue.
John Rhino Edwards of Status Quo and blues musician Danny Bryant took to social media to show their support for Backstage which faced permanent closure due to the Covid-19 outbreak.
Venue operator David Mundell believes the funding will keep Backstage in business until April 1 when he hopes they will be able to put on live shows again.
He said: “Backstage Kinross is a special intimate, small capacity destination venue. It attracts people from all over the UK.
“Because of the success of our crowdfunder, we now know that we can survive until April 2021, when we can resume live gigs in Kinross.
“It’s such a relief, many thanks to everyone who supported.”
Backstage Kinross was 1 of 30 grassroots music venues highlighted by the charity Music Venue Trust (MVT) earlier in November as being in imminent danger of permanent closure.
Backstage is the first of the 30 to have secured enough funding to save it.
Mark Davyd, CEO Music Venue Trust, said: “We are absolutely delighted that Backstage at Kinross has been saved and moved on to the MVT Green list of venues that are safe until March 31 2021.
“We set out to save 30 venues, this is the first one and we are determined to do the same for the other 29.
“We want to thank everyone in the local community and in the music community that supported the Backstage campaign.
“We can prevent the permanent closure and loss of every single one of these spaces.
“People who say it cannot be done should get out of the way of the people doing it.”
In the last eight months since lockdown began MVT raised over £3 million in donations and guaranteed more than £80 million in government assistance to help stave off the imminent closure of over 400 grassroots music venues.
To see the venues still under threat from closure and donate to their cause visit www.crowdfunder.co.uk/save-our-venues-red-list
