THE Livewire Youth Music venue in Saltash will tonight (Wednesday) be lighting up in red to take part in the latest phase of the We Make Events campaign, ‘Stand As One’, calling for more support for people involved in the entertainment industry who are hit by the global pandemic.

Livewire Youth Music, which is supporting the campaign as a member of We Make Events Cornwall and Devon and Light It In Red, is a charity helping young people aged from 13 to 21 to reach their potential in the field of music and entertainment and is based at Brooke Close on Saltash Waterside.

On its Facebook page it says of tonight’s campaign events: ‘Today we are thinking about all our colleagues and friends within the entertainment industry who are struggling to survive this crisis.

‘Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer and Ed Davy, you need to do something now to protect the entertainment industry.’

Livewire Youth Music has for years been organising events and putting on shows providing a platform or stage for many young bands and artists to develop their confidence and perform to an audience, often for the first time. The charity has also encouraged and supported a great many young people wanting to gain experience in the tech side of events, including sound, lighting and stage crew and managers.

The charity has relied upon a highly-qualified team of paid and volunteer youth workers, and a team of professional musicians and performing arts workers, as well as having music rooms, recording studios, a rehearsal studio and a 250 capacity performing arts venue.

The organisers of the overall We Make Events Stand As One campaign say of the plans for tonight: ‘An entire global industry will join forces for a series of unforgettable events. Around the globe at 8pm local time, thousands of industry professionals in over 20 countries – from New Zealand to the Faroe Islands – will pass the baton across time zones while staging impressive art installations and lighting projections.

‘You can expect to see iconic buildings and monuments #LightItInRed, thousands of powerful shafts of light representing our industry’s workforce, projections of cancelled concerts on the outside of venues, and much, much more.

‘Stand as one with your colleagues and join in with the events. Together we will shine a light on our forgotten industry and get government officials to answer our calls for urgent support.’

Light up time will be from 8pm to 11pm tonight and there will be events elsewhere in Cornwall at Truro Cathedral, Scorrier House, Lusty Glaze cliffs, St Austell Arts Centre, Porthtowan Eco Park and the Minack Theatre, as well as across the Tamar at Plymouth Pavillions and the Theatre Royal Plymouth.