In this recording of our webinar (original event 25 July 2025), we heard from people in music groups who have successfully campaigned to change something in their community. This connects with A guide to local campaigning as a companion resource.
With local authority budgets ever more stretched, and costs of everything rising, the services and facilities that music groups need are often under threat. When that threat is acute, sometimes a campaign is necessary, to push back against changes that would fundamentally damage your group, or mean it won’t be able to operate at all. Making Music has supported member groups in their campaigning, and at this event we talked to some of them, specifically members involved in campaigns to save their music libraries, from the New Surrey Performing Arts Library and Bristol Music Library. Our CEO Barbara Eifler, who supported those campaigns, also contributed with her reflections about what actions were most effective.
We talked about:
- When to campaign – What are the threats to music in your community that might make a campaign necessary and useful?
- The basics of campaigning – The things every campaign needs that will make change happen
- What actually works – From real experiences, what moves a campaign from struggle to success
- Making Music resources – From evidence on the power of music, to a campaigning toolkit, how Making Music can support you to advocate and campaign for your own group.
The views represented by the speakers in this webinar are their own, and do not represent the views of Making Music.
Useful links:
- Making Music resource: A guide to local campaigning
- Making Music campaign: Music libraries
- NewSPAL (New Surrey Performing Arts Library): website
We hope you find this Making Music resource useful. If you have any comments or suggestions about the guidance please contact us. Whilst every effort is made to ensure that the content of this guidance is accurate and up to date, Making Music do not warrant, nor accept any liability or responsibility for the completeness or accuracy of the content, or for any loss which may arise from reliance on the information contained in it.
