What Kate Nash’s grassroots music protest reveals about touring and streaming
In November 2025, singer Kate Nash stood outside the London offices of Spotify and Live Nation with placards, arguing that the music economy no longer works for many working musicians.
The protest drew attention to the financial strain of touring at scale. In February 2026, she elaborated on these concerns in testimony before a UK parliamentary select committee, stating that she lost £26,000 on the European leg of her tour and covered those losses only by selling content on OnlyFans.
In her testimony, Nash criticised major industry players for what she called a “destructive influence” on artists’ finances. She warned that rising costs, including the complexities of post-Brexit touring, could limit both cultural reach and economic viability for UK performers. Nash has been a well-known figure in British music for years, but her public frustration highlights a disconnect between visibility and a sense of security that many mid-career artists understand.
Streaming sits at the centre of this tension, as digital platforms pool subscription revenue and redistribute it based on a share of total listening. Critics argue that this structure concentrates income on global hits while leaving most artists with fractions of a penny per play. Artists increasingly describe having to juggle budgets that resemble household accounts, such as vans against fuel, hotels against sofa-surfing and merchandise against storage fees. One cancelled show can tip a tour from workable to loss-making.
Read more: Why musicians are leaving Spotify – and what it means for the music you love
At the same time, data shows that grassroots music venues in the UK are struggling. Music Venue Trust’s 2025 report found that over the preceding year, more than half of these venues made no profit and dozens closed.
These small venues, often holding just a few hundred people, help sustain touring circuits and renew local music scenes. When they close, much of the cultural support for new talent disappears.
Who pays for live music?
Supporters of the live sector have proposed measures such as ticket levies on large shows to support smaller venues and planning protections for long-running clubs facing redevelopment. These ideas have been debated in Parliament and city-level cultural forums, including a UK government call for a voluntary arena and stadium ticket levy to protect grassroots venues.
Platforms and promoters resist the bleakest readings. Streaming services emphasise the sums they distribute and the global audiences they reach, while large promoters point to rising touring costs and the risks of softer ticket sales. At the same time, analyses of how streaming revenues are shared suggest that most artists receive only small fractions of subscription income. This is not a simple story of villains and victims, yet the distribution of rewards continues to trouble many performers.
Politicians have taken notice, reopening questions about streaming payments and transparency and examining how live music might be supported more broadly. A fan-led review of the live sector launched by MPs has invited evidence from artists, promoters and audiences about the pressures facing touring and small venues.
Similar debates are playing out at city level. The London Assembly has already backed a voluntary ticket levy on arena and stadium shows to help grassroots spaces. Campaign groups and commentators have also pushed for clearer contracts, including initiatives such as the Musicians’ Union’s “Fix Streaming” campaign, which calls on Parliament to support fairer streaming royalty distribution for all creators.
Some critics go further, arguing that the streaming model continues to channel a disproportionate share of revenue to the biggest acts and pressing for reforms to support a broader tier of working musicians, drawing on evidence from the UK Parliament’s inquiry into the economics of music streaming.
These problems have effects beyond money. As touring becomes more difficult and there are fewer venues, fewer acts are willing to take risks with new audiences. Local music scenes are shrinking, and young performers lack opportunities to try out new material, make mistakes, and improve. Audiences feel this too, when there are fewer shows, less variety and favourite bands stop touring.
Nash doesn’t claim to speak for everyone, and one protest can’t represent the whole industry. However, her choice to share frustrations usually kept private says something about today’s situation. Popular music has always mixed glamour with uncertain pay and long hours, but what’s new is how openly artists are now asking if the current system can support lasting careers.
If this middle ground continues to shrink, listeners might notice the change not in statistics but in daily life: fewer tours, closed local venues and bands quietly deciding that touring is no longer worth it.
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Paul G. Oliver does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.