Parklife and Warehouse Project co-founder Sacha Lord is launching a fund to help support music promoters in Manchester.
The initiative is aiming to help the grassroots music scene in the city, via the ‘Annual Promoter Fund’.
The fund, which is going to be awarded by The Sacha Lord Foundation, which was set up by the city’s Night Time Economy Advisor and his wife Demi to support young people in the hospitality and cultural industries.
The fund will award four recipients per year, aged between 19 and 25, with a share of £10,000 to help develop a new music concept in Greater Manchester.
Speaking about the initiative, Sacha Lord said: “Discussions over the last couple of weeks have all been about the global superstars performing at large arenas, but we need to shine a light on the smaller grassroots events which can catapult acts into the mainstream.
“Without these events, there wouldn’t be arena tours and names like Raye and Stormzy would never have been discovered.
“We have some great music promoters in Greater Manchester who put some amazing nights on in these smaller venues, but we need to encourage more young people to come into the sector who have the big ideas and drive to create something special.
“These are the promoters who will go on to create the Parklifes, Glastonburys and Creamfields of the future and provide the stages for new music acts to come through.”
“As I’ve been speaking about recently in my book, when I was starting off my biggest hurdle was finding the money for venue hire, DJs, marketing and so on.
“I want to take this hurdle away and help young people who have the ideas but no way of breaking through.”
First time promoters wishing to apply for funding should email NTEOffice@greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk, with details of their idea, why the event would be a success in Greater Manchester and how they plans to utilise the funding.
Entries are to be ‘unique to Greater Manchester, forward-thinking and diverse’, while events across all genres will be considered.
Shortlisted entrants will then be asked to present their concepts to Sacha Lord and his team in person, before four winning ideas are chosen for development over the next 12 months.
The closing date for the first round of entries is 30 June, 2024.
