Foo Fighters (Photo: Paul Bachmann for Live4ever Media)
Foo Fighters, Miley Cyrus, Phoebe Bridgers, Brittany Howard and Portugal. The Man are among the artists who’ll be performing concerts across the United States later this month in support of independent music venues.
YouTube Music has teamed up with the National Independent Venue Association for #SOSFest, when 35 gigs will be recorded at 25 independent venues across the US for broadcast between October 16th-18th. Those tuning in will be invited to donate to the NIVA Emergency Relief Fund.
Similar fundraising initiatives continue to be organised in the UK as many grassroots venues fight for a piece of the government’s £1.5 billion arts relief fund, promised by a chancellor who has since invited those who contribute billions of pounds to the UK economy every year to instead retrain as IT consultants.
“This fund provides the opportunity to stabilise and protect our vibrant and vital network of venues and gives us the time we need to create a plan to Reopen Every Venue Safely,” the Music Venue Trust said when the fund was first announced. “On behalf of every grassroots music venue in the UK we would like to take this opportunity to thank every music fan, every artist, every activist, and every one of you, our people, who got this done.”
