This month we celebrated the Youth Music Awards 2024 in association with Hal Leonard Europe.
Many music awards ceremonies have come under fire the past few years, mainly for lacking diversity and representation, bias towards certain genres, and little recognition for independent artists. While some progress has been made, it often seems a knee jerk response to public pressure rather than a concerted effort to make long term change.
At Youth Music, inclusion, diversity, equity and access are at the heart of our work. So we created an awards ceremony centered on these important elements. We continue to learn and adapt every year, but here’s how we do things differently…
Enabling access
Many charity award ceremonies charge nominees to attend! But for us, platforming the people, and bringing them together, are our main goals. The Youth Music Awards financial model is built on equity, with the sponsorship from our valuable corporate partners enabling us to do things differently. Whether that’s training and paying the next generation of events professionals, feeding everyone, or paying travel and accommodation so people from around the UK can be part of the event.
Unique to the Youth Music Awards is the bringing together of people from across the whole music industries. From young people right at the start of their careers, to the grassroots youth and community projects supporting them, through to the streaming platforms and the major labels. Whilst tickets are in high demand, we always save a quota for young people from our NextGen Community and for our funded partners. People who might not otherwise get to come to this type of event.
“Without grassroots talent there is no diversity in the music industry” – Ellie Prohan
From early planning stages of the Youth Music Awards, right through to the celebrations on the night; diversity threads through the entire event.
Across all longlisted nominees, we ensure a balance of genders, backgrounds and geographies. Whilst many ceremonies are criticised for overrepresenting indie and pop, genre diversity is a priority for us.
We aim for a broad representation of the diverse communities we work with on stage throughout the night. We even ask our sponsors to consider this when deciding who presents their award on stage. Presenters and winners talked about the importance of this, including Social Action Award winner Supermann on Da Beat who told us “Everything I do is so, one day someone like me can be on this stage and win a Grammy”.
Other than our amazing Grassroots Hero award winner Jordan Stephens, the people being celebrated aren’t household names. They’re the unsung heroes, and the next generation who’ll be powering the industries of tomorrow. We aim to give them a platform to be seen. As Jordan Stephens told them,
“When I look around, the real heroes in this community are the youth workers, the care workers, the teachers, the organisers. They move in silence. I see all of you in this room and I dedicate all of this to you. I wouldn’t be here without you”.
Young people being paid for their hard work
The music industry has long been criticised for taking advantage of young people’s enthusiasm to get a ‘foot in the door’ by offering unpaid internships. Successful award ceremonies take a team of people behind the scenes to make it all happen on the night. Youth Music offers 18-25 year old creatives paid opportunities to work on the event, alongside a team of experienced professionals. Having young people involved makes the event unique, and differentiates it from other ceremonies.
This year, Live Nation sponsored the NextGen paid roles which include hosting, video editing and production support. All those working at the event received training ahead of the awards, and invaluable on the ground event experience to help progress their careers. Travel to and from the training and awards is covered and all roles are paid at or above Real Living Wage rates. This ensures all young people, whatever background they are from, are given the opportunity to be involved. Finally, we make sure our team are looked after on the night.
It shouldn’t only be about those living in London…
With 86% of Youth Music’s funding being invested outside of London, it’s really important everyone can enjoy this important diary date. To do this one of our sponsors supported travel costs for nominees facing financial barriers.
What it should be all about – live music!
Unfortunately, there are less opportunities for young people to play music live than ever before due to financial constraints, inaccessible stages, and grassroots music venues closing.
Through the awards, we are in a unique position to provide young people with an opportunity to perform in front of industry movers and shakers such as record labels, publicists and brands. This year’s awards saw six inspiring performances from YMA nominees; Peri Rae, Sarah Isabella, Lucy Iris, 4 the Brotherhood, Meduulla, Richard Carter. And, to close the awards was an electric performance by recently signed pop/R&B artist, Morgan.
Rescue the Roots
The theme of this year’s awards was Rescue the Roots. Across 2025, we’ll be campaigning for the importance of investing in the roots.
In a tough funding environment, even prestigious awards such as the Mercury Prize have had to hold on live music being part of their celebrations in 2024. So we’re even more grateful to all of the award sponsors who came through this year. But we need to expand and deepen our partnerships to make the difference for young people that we all want to see.
We’d like to thank all of our team and guests for another amazing evening celebrating music, diversity and creativity – check out our highlights video here!
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