Perry concert film spotlights UK venue funding gap
A global cinema release of Katy Perry’s Paris concerts underscores the urgent financial strain on Europe’s grassroots music venues, where a government-backed funding levy remains largely unenforced.
Katy Perry’s ‘Lifetimes Tour’ concert film will open across 70 countries on September 2, including more than 150 cinemas in the UK. The 132-minute feature, directed by Paul Dugdale and produced by Daniel E. Catullo III of 10 Lives Studios, was captured during two sold-out nights in Paris last November using a 60-camera setup. It includes exclusive behind-the-scenes footage alongside the live performance.
The cinematic release follows a massive international tour that sold over one million tickets across 91 shows in 23 countries. Running for just under eight months, the tour kicked off in Mexico City and wrapped in Abu Dhabi, featuring six historic performances in China.
The decision to broadcast a stadium-level production in local cinemas represents an increasingly common strategy to extract secondary revenue from major tours. Trafalgar Releasing, which is distributing the film, frames the release as a way for audiences to experience the production "on the biggest screen possible." For the wider European live music economy, however, the project highlights a deep structural imbalance.
While Perry’s tour generated substantial ticket sales, the grassroots venues that develop emerging talent are facing an existential financial crisis. The Music Venue Trust, which received £81,918 from the tour, recently confirmed that 30 grassroots venues were lost forever between July 2024 and July 2025. Last year alone, more than half of the remaining venues operated without making a profit, resulting in over 6,000 job losses across the sector.
The stark contrast has fueled a long-running debate over how to fund the bottom of the live music supply chain. Advocates have pushed for a financial contribution from arena and stadium gigs to subsidise smaller spaces. This model, which mirrors the revenue-sharing mechanisms used in professional European football leagues like the Premier League, secured UK government backing in 2024.
Despite that political endorsement, the voluntary system has failed to achieve widespread compliance. Many major touring acts and their promoters are still not paying into the levy. In this context, the £81,918 donated by Perry’s tour—alongside $264,814 given to her own Firework Foundation in the US—remains a voluntary gesture rather than a systemic fix.
As cinema tickets for the Paris footage go on sale on July 30, the film will offer a high-gloss view of a thriving global tour. For policymakers and industry executives, the real takeaway is the ongoing failure to bridge the financial chasm between Europe's stadium tours and its vanishing local venues.
