Last month, a number of UK artists took part in Stagehand’s #ILoveLive fundraiser for music crew and technicians. After all the prizes were drawn and the event closed last week, it has been announced that the campaign alone raised over half a million pounds – £535,840, to be exact.

The description included on the official website reads, “The #ILoveLive memorabilia prize draws were arranged to support the unsung heroes of the live music industry – the people behind the scenes that make the magic happen, the crew and the technicians. Most of these people are self employed and no shows means no income. Although Government support has helped, there are still many that have slipped through the cracks and need our support.”

Artists who donated prizes for fans to win via donation include Sam Smith, Radiohead, Robbie Williams, Melanie C, FKA Twigs, Foals, The Cure’s Robert Smith and many more. Prizes were incredible memorabilia such as Smith’s Schecter ‘Fibonacci Sequence’ UltraCure guitar, hand-painted lyrics by Florence and the Machine, Melanie C’s jacket worn on the Spice World Tour in 2019, and even FKA Twigs’ Commedia dell’Arte masks.

Friday I’m in love … https://t.co/RaA2vjgl84

— Stagehand (@StagehandFund) December 12, 2020

The founder of Stagehand Andy Lenthall told NME, “There are people who have been able to get alternative work, and there are people can survive on self-employment income support, and there are people who have been furloughed – but we’ve lost  lot of people due to redundancies and 20% of our self-employed crew have fallen through the cracks and had nothing.” As well as the money raised, GiftAid gave an additional £10,882 (estimated), bringing the total up to £546,722.