SCOTTISH musicians are banding together to do a 24-hour live 'gig', named the 'Sofathon', to raise money for Music Venue Trust.
Luke La Volpe, 24 year old singer from Livingston, joined together with a number of up-and-coming musicians across the UK including Glasgow groups Lucia & The Best Boys, Kitti, Ninth Wave and Stephanie Cheape to stream gigs right into people's living rooms.
With live gigs being postponed for at least the next few weeks, up-and-coming artists have come together for a series of online gigs in support of grassroots music venues, the life-blood of every emerging artist.
Luke La Volpe kicked off the #SofathonSingalong series last week with a live show streamed to fans from his Bathgate home on Instagram Live, asking fans to donate to the Music Venue Trust, which helps grassroots venues to survive in an already difficult environment.
Luke told The Glasgow Times: “We sold out King Tut’s gig in May in 9 hours.
"It was pretty gutting when we had to announce it has moved to September,” said Luke, “we wanted to keep doing something so we didn't go mad in the house.
"It was a great idea because other artists are introduced to the fan bases of different artists and its managed to grow an almost instantaneous community.
"People need gigs to keep them happy. Its for everyone to enjoy.
"It’s going to be really hard for grassroots venues over the next few months and we want them be able to carry on when we come back. We decided to use my live-streamed gig from home to tell people about the Music Venue Trust, which gives these places a load of help and advice.
"We thought other artists might like to help, so we came up with the ‘ice bucket challenge’ style nominations. It’s unreal who it’s taking off and great to see so many artists doing their bit to help these small venues.”
Mark Davyd from the Music Venue Trust told The Glasgow Times that only 114 music venues out of the 670 in the UK have a sense of financial security in the next four weeks.
The Music Venue Trust have started a crisis fund to support small venues which may face closure in the coming weeks.
Other artists who want to take part can start a live stream on Instagram, Facebook or YouTube channels, tag the Music Venue Trust’s #FIGHTBACK crowdfunder and nominate three other artists to take part.
The Music Venue Trust is a registered charity helping grassroots music venues with legal and other issues. You can find out more about their crisis fund here.
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