Every day in March, our team of gig-lovers will be walking, cycling or running to raise money for the Music Venue Trust.  

The Gig Ready challenge is a reason to get off the sofa, improve our mental health and give ourselves something to focus on while count the day until the end of lockdown. Our aim is to support independent venues while we can't visit them in person, and get ourselves fit and ready for a dance when gigs return to us later in the year. 

We're raising money for the Music Venue Trust's Save our Venues fund, which supports the independent venues that haven't received funding over the pandemic, and are at risk of closure. In 'normal' times we'd be supporting these venues with our beer money, so right now we're supporting them with our sweat instead.

Shout Louder's Gig-Ready Challenge Team

Runners

• Lucias Malcolm (Call Me Malcolm) is running the distance to the Fighting Cocks (Kingston-On-Thames), via The Harp Restrung (Folkestone), The Lady Luck (Canterbury) and New Cross Inn. That's 147km!
• Chris Lowry (Warrington Ska Punk) is running the distance to The Salty Dog in Northwich 7 times over (that's 150km!)
• Joe Papworth (Slopebite) is running the distance to The Crauford Arms in Milton Keynes and back (that's 150km too!)

Cyclists

• Matt Wilson (Dead Extras) is cycling the distance from Leeds to the Camden Underworld! (318km!)
• Danny Cummings (Fair Do's / MPF) is cycling the distance from Manchester to London's New Cross Inn! 
• Kirstie (Social Distance Warriors) is cycling a whopping 1000km in a month!

Walkers

• Our team of walkers have pledged to walk 10,000 steps a day*
  • Sarah Williams (Shout Louder)
  • Andy Davies (TNSrecords / Knife Club / MPF)
  • Charlotte Corry (Just Say Nay)
  • Claire Schauberger
  • Emma O'Connell (Nice As Pie Race)
  • Holly Pops (Hell Hath No Fury / Burning Flag)
  • Mark Bartlett (Our Lives In Cinema)
  • Robyn Pierce (Colin's Punk Rock World)
  • Bee Bentall
  • Ben Usaf
• Thom (Social Distance Warriors) is going to take it a step further and hit 14,920 steps every day (that the number of miles between Manchester and Edinburgh)

*Some walkers are walking 10k steps every single day, others are walking an average over 10k steps per day across the week.

Follow us on social for updates on our progress - we're going to be visiting as many music venues as we can on our walks, sharing our playlists and reminding ourselves of why live music is so important.