Sam Fender has raised £50,000 from ticket gross sales on his ‘Folks Watching’ tour for the charity Youth Music.
Fender was supported early in his profession by the North East-based Youth Music-funded programme Generator and has now given again to the charity. His donation will probably be matched by Youth Music’s new Rescue The Roots marketing campaign, a £2million fundraising initiative to sort out the funding disaster threatening grassroots youth music initiatives throughout the UK.
Which means in complete, £100,000 will go on to initiatives funded by Youth Music within the North East.
“I’m proud to help Youth Music and their ‘Rescue the Roots’ marketing campaign,” mentioned Fender. Assist for younger individuals within the arts is scarce – initiatives like these are so vital.”
“We’re extremely grateful to Sam for selecting to help Youth Music and younger individuals within the North East,” mentioned Carol Reid, interim Co-CEO at Youth Music. “Music can change younger individuals’s lives, however too many nonetheless face boundaries to accessing it, simply due to the place they stay. This important funding will assist guarantee alternative isn’t dictated by postcode. It’s actually encouraging to see increasingly more profitable artists giving again to grassroots music, which is commonly the place they study their craft.”
The charity has mentioned that the donation will assist to fight “persistent regional inequalities” highlighted of their Sound of the Subsequent Technology (SONG) report which discovered that solely half (52 per cent) of younger individuals within the north of England see themselves as musical compared to 62 per cent of individuals within the south.
Fender beforehand adopted a £1 ticket levy on his tour to assist help the survival of grassroots music venues. In September, it was confirmed the funds had helped help 38 grassroots music venues throughout the UK.
Final month, Fender claimed his first ever Quantity One single together with his Olivia Dean collab ‘Rein Me In’, breaking the report for probably the most consecutive weeks spent within the Prime 40 earlier than reaching the highest. Its 35-week climb has damaged the earlier report of 19 weeks set by Ed Sheeran’s ‘Pondering Out Loud’ in 2014.
The pair additionally gained a BRIT Award for Track of The 12 months earlier this month. Fender additionally gained Various/Rock Act – that means he has 5 BRITs trophies to his title, in addition to the 2025 Mercury Prize for ‘Folks Watching’.
