Formed by a refusal to accept music industry barriers, an underground music venue owner builds access for underrepresented creatives and protects grassroots culture.

Mike Thompson has many creative roles. Alongside managing music charity RiteTrax and grassroots music venue Plot 22, he is a music producer, DJ and plays bass for indie funk and jazz band, Goldivox.

Earlier, Mike had been wrapping up his weekly music session with a young artist, Sleepwalka, who he’s been working with for nearly two years. Alongside providing him access to music equipment and teaching, Mike also supported him with his key GCSEs.

“He got into the college doing music now, he’s got a band, he’s putting his own music out, he’s full of confidence, and we recently had him come play at Castlegate Festival to continue giving him opportunities.”

As he finishes his cigarette in the bitter cold, Mike walks through the graffiti-coloured gate that is Plot 22. With its sold-out local events, the intimate 120-capacity venue is a much-loved and respected space in the independent music scene, which, alongside RiteTrax, recently celebrated its 10th birthday.

As director of RiteTrax and General Manager of Plot 22 alongside his long-time pal, Adam Seymour, Mike understands firsthand the pressures of running a grassroots music venue in the current economic climate. The duo recently joined forces with fifteen other vital music spaces as part of the Sheffield Independent Venues Alliance, a collective effort to help sustain Sheffield’s thriving and diverse local music scene.

Data from the Night Time Industries Association’s 2026 report shows a 3% decline in the number of UK nightclubs operating in 2025. Not only that, but the average profit margin for grassroots venues remains critically low at 2.5%.

Without the individuals who have a love for the craft, like Mike working behind the scenes, artists can’t break through from the underground. There are concerns about what happens when grassroots music funding dries up. “People lose steam, the quality drops, or the person driving it goes to prison, and suddenly there’s a gap.”

Ambient beats play inside the warmth of Mike’s studio, where he jokingly admits that his is the only working radiator in the venue. It’s vibrant, imaginative and filled with music memorabilia. “We’ve always tried to make it feel like a genuine underground, grassroots music space, even down to all the art on the walls being by people who we’ve worked with. It’s all got a certain aesthetic, but I feel like Plot 22 is made for it. I imagine it’s quite inspiring for people to come here.” For young and underrepresented creatives getting their first shot in the music industry at Riterax studios, the studio’s striking presence is an essential instrument in experimenting with music. The path to creating this space, however, wasn’t straightforward.

Playing the bass at gigs across Manchester from the age of 14, he describes his early musical influences as a varied ‘melting pot’ of genres. While his first love was rock bands like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, his interest in drum and bass music didn’t emerge until his university years. As a student, he co-founded Artificial Constructs, a creative collective focused on events and underground artist promotion. “We raised over a grand for some guy to cycle to India.” However, it wasn’t until his 14-month prison sentence for drug offences that he considered music as the driving force behind his future career.

“Music was massive for me inside prison, because I guess at first it was the lack of music which was intense.” After three months of limited access to the top 10 charts and relying on radio entertainment, Mike was moved to another wing where he met Moses and Tristan, who both gifted him their guitars. “It made a huge difference and helped me get loads better because I just sat playing the guitar all day. Fortunately, because I can actually play, people liked it, and they’d come and tell me, “Play this tune.”

On his Doncaster prison induction form in 2014, Mike wrote, “I just want to keep busy and help people”. This led to Jackie Hewitt Maine, the Founder of the Cascade Foundation, a UK-based charity that supports ex-offenders, contacting Mike. She offered him the opportunity to help teach inmates English during his sentence. While the position was centred on education, it was Jackie’s encouragement that helped Mike recognise where his real passion lay. “She inspired me to do some kind of charitable work, but rather than it being about literacy, I wanted it to be about music.”

That idea followed Mike beyond his release. With the help of Reform Radio, Mike and Adam co-founded RiteTrax in 2015 as a social enterprise for independent artists and a space providing music access to underprivileged groups. “Our initial vision of the space was to combine elements of poetry, graffiti, live music and DJing in one event, while widening production accessibility for underprivileged communities.” These motivations were shaped by the talented individuals he encountered during his time in prison.

“Whether it was like building a to-scale model of Doncaster prison from matchsticks, painting, singing, rapping and even acting, when people have got the time, you realise it’s amazing what you can do. There’s loads of talent in this pool of people that are basically written off, so we need to tap into that.”

What Mike witnessed inside prison and later through his work at RiteTrax reflects a wider problem across the music industry. Despite the talent he encountered, access remains unequal, with women, ethnically diverse communities, disabled people and those from working-class backgrounds still underrepresented in the industry, according to the UK Music Diversity report. “The music industry in general is pretty closed off to people who aren’t from more privileged backgrounds. A lot of ordinary people or those who are shunned and not really appreciated don’t have the opportunity to do anything.”

RiteTrax also hosts a Get Started with Music Production crash course in partnership with The King’s Trust, aimed at helping young people who are currently out of work or training build transferable and music production skills. Alongside Adam and Forca, Mike attends the sessions midweek, helping groups to produce their tracks by playing the guitar or bass.

“I would’ve loved going on a course like that. You see people open up, become more expressive, and they’re massively proud of this track they’ve put together in such a short amount of time.”

Plot 22 remains central to Sheffield’s underground scene, giving emerging artists space to grow and find local support. Femur, COCO and Sammy Virji are just a handful of multi-genre artists the intimate venue supported early in their careers. COCO produced an EP in the very studio Mike is now sitting in, along with their most recent track, ‘Stan Smith’ with Alchemist, which Mike helped record. “That tune now has absolutely blown up, all over the world,” he says, pulling up the music video recorded on the roof of Plot 22. “It’s those kinds of examples that show if there isn’t that scene at this level, then you don’t get those people coming through.”

It’s this fragile pipeline, from small studios to main stages, that the Sheffield Independent Venues Alliance hopes to protect. Mike is clear that independent venues rely as much on audiences as they do on artists. “People need to be reminded to support independent artists and venues. You go to one big concert, and you might spend £50 or three times that, but if you go to a small venue instead, you’ll spend less money, have a better time and see some cool stuff.

In the quiet of his studio, Mike Thompson leans back, relaxed and unhurried, as he reflects on what really keeps underground music spaces thriving. Having relied on them at points in his own life, he believes, “DIY spaces are sustained by effort, time and, yes, money, but mostly by people just doing stuff because they want to do it. We’ve got to get back into supporting music as a whole. If you’re into music, you have to commit to that.”

He’s been a guitarist, producer, DJ and now runs a music charity, so he’s seen all sides of the industry. What does music mean to him now?

“It’s such an integral part of my identity. It might be music that I’ve grown up loving, particular albums like Stone Roses, where when I listen to it I get rushes all over my body and like my hair stands on ends. Sometimes when I play with the band, I feel like crying. I literally can’t articulate how it makes me feel.”

And in that moment, it’s clear that everything Mike builds, RiteTrax, Plot 22, and the sessions, comes from wanting other people to feel what music has given him and believing that these spaces only survive when someone chooses to keep showing up. CS

Featured image via Harley Raine