Culture in London during COVID-19

City Hall is working hard to support and champion London’s culture, creative industries and night time economy during the COVID-19 crisis – as well as looking after its immediate resilience and longer term recovery.

Please see our Coronavirus updates and guidance for the latest information.

Advocacy and Intelligence

We are working with people, businesses and organisations across London to understand their experiences and challenges first-hand. This helps us to lobby and advocate on their behalf. We are doing this by:

• Hosting a range of roundtable discussions
• Gathering intelligence and data through the Culture at Risk casework
• Working with professional associations and industry bodies
• Working with boroughs and landlords
• Lobbying Government to ensure support reaches all businesses, artists and self-employed in the creative industries
• Learning and sharing best practice from international cities through our role leading the World Cities Culture Forum

Funding and support

As well as lobbying to ensure Government-funded initiatives are accessible by as many people and businesses as possible, we are directly funding grants and support programmes.

• Our £2.3m Culture at Risk Business Support Fund will help grassroots music and LGBTQ+ venues, independent cinemas and affordable creative workspace businesses which are not covered by Government support and are at imminent risk of closure
• Our £750,000 Community Spaces at Risk Fund offers local communities the chance to protect grassroots cultural centres, social clubs, youth, education and other spaces that are locally rooted and critical for supporting vulnerable groups during the pandemic.
• The Mayor launched the London Community Response Fund, a £9m fund offering grants of up to £50k including for community focused arts and culture, voluntary and civic organisations
• We have expanded our Culture at Risk office, and are helping with guidance on eligible funds and resources
• We are continuing the Mayor’s existing programmes and funding, including for London Borough of Culture and Creative Enterprise Zones and the Creative Industries investment portfolio, ensuring flexibility in delivering projects and accessing grants