🔗 Share this article

Sam Fender has handed over the complete sum of his £25k award cash to the Music Venues Trust, which operates to save the Britain's independent live music spots.

He was given the prize on 16 October as his third album the album was named the top album of the last 12 months.

Fender has decided to give the cash to the trust, in acknowledgment of the crucial part local spots fulfilled in his beginning days.

"I personally wouldn't be doing my current career if it wasn't for all the shows I performed around the region, and further afield, when I was beginning," said Sam Fender. "These locations are renowned, but they are in difficulty."

Beginning in 2023, over 150 of these spaces have shut down – about 16 percent of the entire UK sector.

Recently, major artists such as Pulp, the group Coldplay, Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran have all aided the trust in its efforts to support the industry, by adding a small levy to their admission fees, which benefits local stages.

Fender also participated, collecting in excess of £100,000 on his 2024 arena tour to assist thirty-eight local spots across Britain.

These funds helped locations that were dealing with imminent closure due to difficulties arising from flooding, fire incidents and family tragedies, as well as permit problems, legal disputes and neighbor objections.

Other venues were granted monetary aid in modernizing facilities and sound and lighting systems that directly benefitted performers and fans.

"The idea that revenue from performances in large arenas helps the local stages, where it kicks off for performers like me, is just common sense," Sam Fender has commented.

The musician is not the first artist to give his Mercury Prize prize money to good deeds.

In the band earned the trophy in the year 1996 for their release Different Class, vocalist Cocker stated that the band would give their cash to the non-profit War Child.

That year, artist the artist shared her bounty across several charities, including the NSPCC and a Sickle Cell charity.

"I also donated a thousand pounds to Highgate Newtown, to their gymnastics program, because I did gymnastics when I was younger and they needed better apparatus," she told outlets.

In recent years, Ezra Collective contributed their prize money to the community center that supported their band, as well as other grassroots music organisations.

And the 1994 recipients M People gave their prize to a multiple sclerosis charity after a close contact was identified with the disease.

"Receiving the award was sufficient," stated artist Small. "The cash was the bonus but we didn't require the extra, because we had the cake. So our victory affected another person's life."

Last week, the MVT revealed it had protected a couple of grassroots venues in south-east England, by transferring them to local control.

One venue in Southampton and The Croft in Bristol were purchased under the community ownership initiative, which is supported by a national body and music fans who purchase "shares" in the properties.