Sam Fender donates his £25k prize award winnings to small concert halls
The star has given the full amount of his £25k Mercury Prize winnings to the trust for venues, which operates to save the United Kingdom's grassroots music venues.
He was given the prize on mid-October as his latest record People Watching was named the top album of the previous year.
He has chosen to donate the funds to the trust, in recognition of the essential function grassroots venues played in his early career.
"As an artist would not have achieved my current career if it wasn't for all the gigs I performed around the North East, and beyond, when I was starting out," remarked Fender. "These spaces are renowned, but they are struggling."
Beginning in 2023, over 150 of these locations have ceased operations – about 16 percent of the whole industry in the UK.
Recently, well-known musicians like Pulp, Coldplay, the singer Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran have all backed the Music Venues Trust in its attempts to help venues survive, by including a modest fee to their ticket costs, which benefits local stages.
He also took part, collecting over £100k on his recent tour to support thirty-eight grassroots venues across the UK.
The donation assisted venues that were confronting imminent closure due to challenges arising from water damage, fire incidents and family tragedies, as well as licensing issues, conflicts and sound issues.
Additional spaces obtained monetary aid in improving amenities and gear that directly benefitted performers and audiences.
"The notion that revenue from performances in major spaces backs the independent spots, where it all starts for artists like me, is just sensible," Sam Fender has stated.
The musician is among several artists to donate his honor winnings to charitable organizations.
In Pulp earned the award in the year 1996 for their album the album, frontman Jarvis Cocker stated that the band would contribute their prize money to the charity the charity.
During 2002, musician Ms Dynamite split her award across multiple good causes, such as the children's charity and a Sickle Cell organization.
"Additionally, I donated a grand to my local community centre, to their gymnastics class, because I practiced gymnastics when I was younger and they needed better apparatus," Ms Dynamite shared with outlets.
In recent years, they gave their funds to the community center that nurtured their act, alongside other independent music bodies.
Additionally winners that year the group contributed their winnings to a multiple sclerosis charity after a close contact was diagnosed the condition.
"Winning was ample," said singer Heather Small. "The prize was the extra but we could do without the extra, because we had the main prize. So our victory touched somebody else's life."
In the past week, the Music Venues Trust shared it had rescued two small stages in the South East, by bringing them into community ownership.
One venue in the city and the other in that location were purchased under the Own Our Venues initiative, which is funded by the arts council and music fans who buy "stakes" in the venues.