Sam Fender to support Music Venue Trust on new tour
Sam Fender has announced details of a new UK and European tour, marking the singer-songwriter’s first run of dates since 2022. Fender has also pledged to donate £1 to the Music Venue Trust for every ticket sold.
The upcoming ‘People Watching’ tour will be Fender’s biggest to date. This outing sees him levelling up to arenas country-wide as he plays venues like The O2 in London, which has a 20,000 capacity. Fender previously played two dates at St James Park in Newcastle, packing out the stadium with a hometown crowd.
As he begins to tease what is expected to be his third album, this new tour will act as the first outing of a new chapter to his career. Along with the personal glory of levelling up, Fender is using the step up to do good. He’s announced that for every ticket sold across the 16-date run, he’ll donate £1 to Music Venue Trust. Given the size and scale of these venues, that figure quickly shapes up to be a hefty donation going to support the survival of local and independent venues across the country.
While £1 on its own feels like a small contribution, it quickly adds up when artists at this stage of their career commit to supporting the small, local venues that they came up in. Without grassroots venues, artists like Fender would never have been able to climb the ladder to the dizzy heights of arenas, therefore, his dedication to giving back is a fitting way of honouring his roots.
Coldplay have also recently pledge major support for Music Venue Trust. For the new leg of their Music Of The Spheres world tour, the band will be donating 10 per cent of their proceeds to the charity alongside contributions from their promoters, booking agents, venues and the ticketing companies involved.
The CEO of Music Venue Trust, Mark Davyd, says of the gesture: “Coldplay are the perfect example of a UK band who came through the grassroots circuit on their way to worldwide stadium-filling success.” He added, “It’s fantastic to see them celebrating their own pathway to Wembley by giving back to the grassroots music venues that supported them and recognising the artists and promoters that are struggling more than ever to build their own careers.”
The announcement of their tour and work with Music Venue Trust was teased on a poster spotted in the window of Camden’s Dublin Castle, a small pub where the band played their first gig. Fender got his starts playing open mics in small pubs around his Tyneside home of North Shields. Now, as a bonafide star playing bigger and bigger stages as he prepares to release his long-awaited new album, he’s pledging to give back.
Tickets for Fender’s tour go on sale on October 25th at 10am. For his homecoming show in Newcastle, fans have to enter a ballot with a North East postcode to be in for a chance to access tickets.
Sam Fender’s new album
As of yet, Fender is still yet to announce details of his upcoming third album. However, the name of the upcoming tour, ‘People Watching’, is also a new track that Fender played during a warm-up show at Plymouth Pavilions this summer. Furthermore, the musician has been sharing snippets of the upcoming track on social media.
In a recent update, Fender told his followers on Instagram that the album had been mastered earlier this month. For the new record, Fender teamed up with The War On Drugs’ Adam Granduciel, who took up production duties.
During an appearance on Johnson & Knopfler’s Music Legends, Fender admitted he “rushed” his second album and didn’t want to do the same this time round, revealing, “We have been recording and recording and making loads of stuff but it got to the point where I thought, ‘We don’t need to get this out yet. We need to get it right’”.
Fender continued, “I want to do the best I possibly can. I’d rather it be late and great than early and shite.”
Sam Fender tour dates:
2024
2nd December – 3Arena, Dublin
4th December – First Direct Arena, Leeds
6th December – Co-Op Live, Manchester
10th December – The O2, London
13th December – Utilita Arena, Birmingham
16th December – OVO Hydro, Glasgow
20th December – Utilita Arena, Newcastle
2025
4th March – Olympia, Paris
5th March – 013 Poppodium, Tilburg
8th March – Halle 622, Zurich
10th March – Palladium, Cologne
12th March – Zenith, Munich
13th March – ChorusLife Arena, Bergamo
16th March – Uber Eats Music Hall, Berlin
18th March – Afas Live, Amsterdam
19th March – Forest National, Brussels
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