Sam Fender has given the complete sum of his £25,000 Mercury Prize winnings to the MVT, which functions to preserve the UK's small music venues.
He was presented with the prize on October 16 as his third album the album was chosen as the top album of the previous year.
Fender has chosen to give the cash to the Music Venues Trust, in recognition of the essential function local spots had in his beginning days.
"As an artist couldn't be pursuing this success if it wasn't for all the shows I performed around the region, and further afield, when I was starting out," stated Fender. "These spaces are iconic, but they are in difficulty."
Since the start of 2023, at least 150 of these locations have shut down – approximately 16 percent of the total UK scene.
Over the past year, top acts like Pulp, Coldplay, Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran have all aided the trust in its efforts to keep the scene afloat, by including a modest fee to their admission fees, which goes to help independent venues.
Sam Fender also participated, generating more than £100,000 on his 2024 arena tour to support thirty-eight small stages across the UK.
These funds helped locations that were facing possible closure due to issues caused by water damage, blazes and bereavements, as well as regulatory hurdles, legal disputes and neighbor objections.
Additional spaces obtained monetary aid in modernizing facilities and sound and lighting systems that helped performers and audiences.
"The notion that funds from shows in large arenas backs the local stages, where it all starts for artists like me, is just sensible," Sam Fender has said.
The musician is not the first artist to contribute his Mercury Prize funds to worthy causes.
In the band received the trophy in the year 1996 for their record Different Class, frontman the singer announced that the group would give their winnings to the non-profit the charity.
During 2002, artist the artist divided her award across several organizations, like the children's charity and a Sickle Cell charity.
"Additionally, I contributed a grand to the center, to their gymnastics class, because I did gymnastics when I was growing up and they lacked new equipment," Ms Dynamite shared with outlets.
In recent years, they gave their funds to the community center that nurtured their band, alongside other grassroots music organisations.
Also the 1994 recipients they contributed their prize to a MS organization after a friend was diagnosed the illness.
"Receiving the award was sufficient," said vocalist the singer. "The prize was the bonus but we could do without the cherry, because we had the honor. So our success affected somebody else's life."
In the past week, the Music Venues Trust shared it had rescued a couple of local spots in south-east England, by bringing them into local control.
The first in the city and the other in the city were acquired under the Own Our Venues program, which is funded by a national body and supporters who buy "stakes" in the properties.
