Fast Track Live: application guidance

Working musicians who meet the following eligibility criteria: 

• Income: You’ve earned at least 40% of your income from music in the past two years (If you have a long-term health condition or disability, you need to have earned at least 20% of your income from music) 
• Age: 18 or over 
• Residency: Living in the UK, with the right to live and work here 
• Banking: You have a UK bank account 
• Savings: You don’t have more than £10,000 in savings or other funds that could cover your activity. 

Early career musicians who meet the following eligibility criteria: 

• Income: You’ve earned at least £500 from music in the last 12 months (If you have a long-term health condition or disability, you need to have earned at least £250 from music in the last 12 months) 
• Age: 18 or over 
• Residency: Living in the UK, with the right to live and work here 
• Banking: You have a UK bank account 
• Savings: You don’t have more than £10,000 in savings or other funds that could cover your activity. 

This support is categorised as Band 3. Full eligibility criteria can be found here. We strongly recommend you read these before making an application. 

Beyond this, to receive this support you have to: 

• Be able to deliver the activities we’d be supporting you for within 6 months of receiving the funds 
• Have control over one or more aspects of your career, i.e., self-managing, self-releasing or self-producing 
• Be performing and releasing original music under your artist name 

No. This support is for individual musicians. 

However, you can use the funds towards participation in a group project as long as the money is spent on the eligible items (below) and you can show how your involvement will help your own career in music. 

In the application, it is important that you focus on your own music history and goals and not your group’s history and goals. 

If multiple members of your band or group are eligible, then you can apply as individuals but we will only fund the same project once. The applicant who is approved will need to be involved in all other aspects of the support. 

If multiple members of the same band or group are eligible then we will consider funding different projects delivered by the group, but we are highly unlikely to fund multiple projects from the same group or band at within 12 months of each other. 

No, you can only apply for, and take part in, one creative and career service at a time. 

This means that if you are awaiting the outcome of another career development application you will not be eligible to make any further applications. 

This also means that if you are receiving support from another career development award or service, you will not be able to apply for any other career development support until the other support has ended. This would usually be when you have completed your activity and submitted a final report. 

This does not impact access to our Wellbeing services, and you are welcome to apply to us for Musician’s Wellbeing support at any time if you need. 

The financial support is for musicians who require a short turnaround on support during a pivotal moment in their career. 

Please note, you can apply for up to £1,000. We encourage you to only apply for the costs you need right now, and apply for less than £1,000 if that’s what you need. 

You can spend the funding on costs associated with any of the below activities: 

• EP launch shows or other one-off live performances 
• Community-driven live music events 
• Support tours  
• Headline tour – regional 
• Headline tour – national 

Eligible costs include:

Performance costs  

• Venue hire  
• Rehearsal space hire 
• Equipment hire  
• Session musician fees 
• Crew costs 

Travel & logistics 

• Transport costs  
• Accommodation  
• Subsistence while on tour 

Merch & promotion 

• Merch production  
• Specific event promotion or marketing 
• Photography or videography of live performances 

• Activities that take place within 8 weeks of a submitted application 
• Costs towards your own time 
• Ongoing overheads, e.g., utilities and insurance or costs of buying or insuring vehicles 
• Anything that doesn’t clearly develop your career as a musician 
• Contribution towards long-term formal courses of study or research (e.g. undergraduate or postgraduate study) 
• Continuation of regular one-to-one lessons 
• Attendance as a performer at showcases already supported by funds like the International Showcase Fund (e.g. SXSW, CMJ, A3C, Womex, Reeperbahn, Folk Alliance International, Canadian Music Week) 
• Costs associated with entering competitions 
• Funding towards a larger project where this contribution makes up less than 10% of the total project cost 
• Buying a laptop 

For costs not related to live performance, please see more information about Fast Track.

Applications for Fast Track are currently closed. 

We recommend signing up to our mailing list to be the first to hear about future rounds. We will send you emails with the latest news and opportunities for support. 

If you are eligible and have read the guidance on this page, follow the link to begin your application at the bottom of this page. 

Applications are made using our online portal. 

We want everyone to be able to access our services, so if you have access requirements, please find out more about how we can help here.  

If you are a musician with a disability, from the Global Majority, a woman or LGBTQ+ musician, then you can apply for Inclusive Selection when you make an application. Find out more .

Fast Track Live is designed to support musicians at a meaningful moment in their career. The strongest applications clearly show how a specific live opportunity, such as a tour, festival, showcase or one-off performance, will help build momentum, reach new audiences and create future career opportunities.

We always receive more eligible applications than we can support so we prioritise applications based on: 

Timing and urgency: The timing of this opportunity is critical, rather than it being something that you could do at any time. For example, this could mean that you have an invitation to perform at a festival within the next couple of months.

Long-term: Show us how this support will help you grow your music career and income in the long term, not just make a short-term difference. 

Track record: Show consistent dedication to your music over time and that your proposed activity continues the momentum you are building. 

We expect this fund to be very competitive, so depending on application numbers, we expect around 1 in 5 applications being successful. 

We recommend you go through all our application guidance before applying, to ensure the best chance of success. 

We try to assess applications as quickly as possible and we will let you know if you have been successful or not within 8 weeks of your complete submission date. 

Please don’t apply for activities that happen sooner than 8 weeks of the date you submit. We cannot fast track applications and we cannot provide updates on when you will hear back from us. 

Please note, if you don’t provide all required information for us to assess your eligibility or application, we will pause your application while we wait for more information from you and this will slow down the process. 

You will need to accept the terms of the funding online and provide activity confirmation (including evidence of at least one confirmed live performance). You will also need to be booked in for a career clinic session before receiving the money. An invite to book your career clinic session will be sent to you after accepting the funding agreement. We anticipate funding to be released within 10 days of you booking your career clinic session. 

We appreciate the time and effort that goes into every application for support. All areas of our support have high demand, and we generally can only support, at most, one in five musicians who apply to us. As a charity, we rely on donations from our supporters and have to prioritise use of their funds where we believe we can best meet our charitable purposes, to prevent and relieve poverty amongst professional musicians and deliver most impact by supporting working musicians to keep making music. Regrettably we don’t have the resources to support more of the musicians who apply to us. 

Additionally, with a small team, we cannot provide individual feedback or enter into any correspondence about decisions on applications for support. We provide guidance and tips on what makes a strong application, which we encourage all applicants to read in detail during the application process. 

We have previously been able to provide feedback but with an increase in complex health and financial support cases, we are no longer able to provide this service.