UK artists who are struggling to afford to tour have one last chance to apply for the latest round of cash from the Featured Artists Coalition’s UKAT fund – aiming to take “even bigger step to making live music more inclusive”.
Back in March, the FAC launched their first phase of offering up grants from a “seriously game-changing” £125,000 fund to help beat “the cost of touring crisis”. In partnership with Music Managers Forum (MMF) and the Musicians’ Union (MU), the programme was funded by money collected from LIVE Trust in donations as part of a voluntary “levy” ticket contributions from the likes of Harry Styles, Radiohead, Lorde, Kasabian, Wolf Alice, and many more.
The LIVE Trust have distributed more than £500,000 so far via this and other ambitious schemes involving Music Venue Trust, with millions more said to be on the way.
Now, artists have until 11.59pm on Sunday September 13 to submit a proposal for a share of an increased £300,000 total, to provide them with “top up” financial support to cover shortfalls in their touring budgets.
“We were very happy with what we accomplished in phase one, given that we entered into the great unknown with the concept,” FAC CEO David Martin told NME. “We had to set out to prove what we wanted to achieve. We proved that the demand for it was enormous and how far £125,000 could go. We funded artists from a massive range of genres: 26 artists, 211 shows and an audience reach of 60,000. The economic activity that it unlocked was massive. That top-up model works.
“We were honest that we weren’t going to solve all the problems in one go, but we want to take the sector on the journey with us.”
Now, as part of phase two, artists can apply for up to a maximum of £8,000 (or up to a maximum of 40 per cent of total eligible tour expenditure – whichever is lower), to fund a combination of headline, support and festival shows. Unconfirmed/tentative show bookings (which must be confirmed prior to the award of funds) can also be included in funding applications.
“This is particularly important in allowing those who just don’t embark on tours because they can’t afford to make a loss to play,” Martin continued. “Those from working class backgrounds who can’t afford to lose £2,000 can now line their shows up, find out if they’ve got the funding and then pull the trigger.
“We still know we’re not going to solve all the problems and there’s going to be huge demand, but hopefully people are seeing the evolution.”
Martin hailed this as “an even bigger step to making live music more inclusive and accessible to all” – with UKAT funding available for “artists of all genres, from all regions and from all backgrounds”.
“We all know the problems of locking people from certain backgrounds out of the music industry, so it was important that we were able to expand to this point,” he shared.
In thanking the big name artists who donated money from their arena and stadium gigs, Martin said that “it’s thanks to those shows, the fans and the LIVE Trust that we can do this”. Harry Styles has again agreed to contribute £1 from every ticket sold to his upcoming London shows in 2027 to the fund, among other charities.
“Our pot is now £300,000 so we can more than double the distribution of funding,” Martin told NME. “That’s a massive show of confidence and an increase in what we can do. You can see that we’re trying to build a long-term intervention.
“Through UKAT, there are now 26 extra artists out on the road touring without financial losses as a result of the donations from the very biggest shows. It’s a very virtuous full circle. Those donations now have a face and you can see whose hands the money is going into and which shows are now enabled to happen for fans. Harry Styles playing Wembley so this can happen is a very visceral demonstration of this in action.”
While the much-discussed levy is proving a success, there remains mounting pressure for the government to make it mandatory for all gigs at arena level and above to contribute £1 from each ticket sold to supporting grassroots artists and venues.
While Martin agreed that he wanted to see a “blanket” approach, he would rather big companies come around the table to make it happen without slowing things down through government intervention.
“We’re showing that it’s working,” said Martin. “Now that there is a tangible output, we’re hearing more positive noises from the whole section. Our view is that we need to continue. I think calls for government intervention are premature and risk destabilising the progress that we’re making.
“In a few months we’d have funded 80 artists in the first year, and now there are a lot more big shows contributing to this. I’m not hearing moral reticence, it’s just people seeing it working. I’m really hopeful and confident of it going in the right direction. The UK’s live music sector could become world-beating and reinvigorated again. We have a duty to make it work.”
Martin added: “It’s a positive expansion of the principles of developing artists’ careers, developing new audience pipelines and ensuring the supply chain of personnel and services is getting work. That’s what we’re trying to achieve with UKAT by putting that funding in the artists’ hands and making that activity happen.”
Artists have until 11.59pm on Sunday (September 13) to apply for UKAT funding and can do so here. To qualify, tours must have a minimum of three UK headline shows in venues of between 75 and 2,000 capacity, shows must be completed by April 30 2027, and all artists, musicians, managers and crew involved must receive fair and reasonable pay – covering show days, travel days and rehearsal time.
