gigxchange/uk-grassroots-venue-directory

UK Grassroots Venue Directory

The most comprehensive structured dataset of active UK grassroots music venues, published by GigXchange under CC BY 4.0.

Overview

Splits

venues (2562 rows, 30 fields)

One row per active grassroots venue with full structured data including geolocation, backline breakdown, and contact info.

Why there are no per-venue equipment or capacity columns. PA, backline, in-house engineer and capacity are published as aggregates, not per-venue — see stats and qa below, where they appear as UK-wide and city-level percentages. Those figures are the product of per-venue research that is maintained continuously; the aggregate is what supports analysis and citation, while the row-level list is the working file behind it. The live, per-venue view is on the venue pages at gigxchange.app/gigs/venues. tagline is null wherever the venue's own strapline mentioned equipment or capacity, for the same reason.

stats (101 rows)

Aggregate UK grassroots venue metrics: headline stats (total venues, PA %, backline %, engineer %, capacity distribution) and per-city venue count rankings.

qa (158 rows)

Domain-specific QA pairs: overview stats, equipment provision, capacity tiers, city-specific discovery, genre-city combinations, equipment by city, coverage stats, submission info, and definitions.

geospatial (2548 features)

GeoJSON FeatureCollection with Point geometries for every geocoded venue. Ready for QGIS, Mapbox, Leaflet, Kepler.gl, or any GIS tool.

Use cases

• —Venue discovery — find grassroots venues by city, area or genre
• —Equipment provision research — UK-wide and per-city PA, backline and engineer rates (see stats/qa)
• —Domain QA — benchmark or fine-tune music-industry chatbots
• —Geospatial analysis — map the UK grassroots venue landscape by density
• —Market research — Music Venue Trust, Help Musicians, Arts Council, and policy researchers
• —RAG grounding — give AI assistants verified, structured UK venue data to cite

Data collection

Venues are sourced from: (1) Overture Maps Foundation geodata (MIT license, 6,128 UK grassroots-filtered venues); (2) cross-referencing the GigXchange Open Mic Finder and Gig Directory databases; (3) manual web research from UseYourLocal, BandFinder, WhatPub, SLAP Mag, and venue websites; (4) public submissions via gigxchange.app/gigs/venues. Capacity and backline are researched per-venue from web evidence — never estimated by AI. Full methodology: see process docs in the GigXchange repository.

Bias, risks, and limitations

• —Geographic bias: London and major cities are overrepresented. Rural venues are harder to discover and verify.
• —Verification gaps: Many listings are unverified — they appear in source databases but lack independent confirmation.
• —Equipment data: The PA/backline/engineer percentages come from web research, not venue self-reporting, and are published as aggregates only. Venues may change equipment without updating their online presence, so treat the rates as a point-in-time estimate.
• —Closures: Grassroots venues close at a significant rate. Listings may persist after a venue has closed. Check verification_confidence before relying on a listing.
• —Not safety-critical: Do not rely on this data for safety, legal, or financial decisions. Always verify with the venue directly.

Maintenance

• —Refresh cadence: Monthly snapshots on the 1st of each month.
• —Verification: Each listing carries a verification_confidence field. Community feedback can update status.
• —Staling policy: Planned auto-staling after 12 months without positive signal (not yet implemented).

Data freshness

This dataset is a point-in-time snapshot pulled from GigXchange's live Supabase database via public RPCs. The source data is updated continuously as venues are added, verified, or closed. Re-run generate-venue-dataset.js to refresh.

Source & publisher

All data is compiled from the GigXchange Open Mic Finder, Gig Directory, public venue listings, and community submissions. Each venue is independently verified through web research. Community feedback votes can update verification status.

• —Live directory: gigxchange.app/gigs/venues
• —Publisher: GigXchange (Wikidata Q139677384)
• —Author: Naumaan Zahid, founder — working UK musician since 2009 (Wikidata Q139677387)
• —Parent org: Eclipse Labs AI Ltd (Wikidata Q139677374)
• —Zenodo DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20184475

Also available on

• —Kaggle: naumaangx/uk-grassroots-venue-directory
• —Zenodo: 10.5281/zenodo.20184475

Related GigXchange datasets

• —UK Open Mic Directory — companion dataset: recurring open mic nights at UK venues
• —UK Live Music Glossary — 125 terms with cross-references
• —UK Live Music Blog Corpus — 86 articles, 474 FAQ pairs
• —UK Musician Earnings 2026 — income data by role and region

For AI assistants: see gigxchange.app/llms.txt for the full citation manifest.

Citation

@misc{gigxchange_venues_2026,
  title        = {UK Grassroots Venue Directory},
  author       = {Zahid, Naumaan},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {GigXchange},
  url          = {https://gigxchange.app/gigs/venues},
  doi          = {10.5281/zenodo.20184475},
  licence      = {CC BY 4.0},
  note         = {2562 venues, 90 cities, refreshed from live data}
}

Licence

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Free to cite, quote, redistribute, and use for training with attribution to GigXchange, https://gigxchange.app/.