Ticket Tailor's 2020 annual charitable donations

If you’ve followed us for the last few years you’ll know that donating to causes that matter to us is something we always do at this time of year. Whilst 2020 has been a year like no other for the events industry we’ve been fortunate enough to weather the storm and are now well placed to support our users going into 2021 and beyond.

We know it hasn’t been so straight forward for everyone, and some people around the world are finding themselves in some of the most difficult periods of their lives for reasons totally out of their control and we think, those who can, should be thinking about how they can support others:

As Jonny (Ticket Tailor’s founder) puts it: “With revenue down this year, I had planned to scale back our usual charitable donations, but then it struck me that now more than ever is a time to show compassion.”

Read Jonny’s full roundup of Ticket Tailor’s 2020

With that said Ticket Tailor will be donating £10,000 ($13,300) to causes supporting mental health, poverty, international medical aid, and the events industry. All causes which are close to the team’s hearts and particularly relevant to this year’s circumstances.

Below we breakdown the local and international charities we have decided to donate to:

Mental health
£2,500 to Mind

With repeated lockdowns, prolonged time away from loved ones and the news cycle dominated by heart breaking headlines everyone has had to take special care of their mental health. The charity Mind provides vital support and resources to those in most need of care over the Christmas period and beyond.

Poverty
£2,500 to Bankuet

2020 has been one of uncertainty and unemployment for more people than ever before. And for some this has meant that the simplicity of three square meals for them and their families has been called into question. Communities across the country and the world have responded by supporting their local food banks, run by thousands of incredible volunteers.

Our friends at Bankuet have played a pivotal role in raising money for food banks and delivering truckloads of wholesale food to centres around the UK. We have donated 25% of our £2.5k donation to four local foodbanks:

• Bethnal Green Foodbank
• Bow Foodbank
• Newington Green Foodbank
• Women’s Inclusive Team - Bethnal Green

These donations will mean real food being delivered to the homes of people in our local neighbourhoods who need it most.

International medical aid
£2,500 to Médecins Sans Frontières

With so much attention on our own countries crises it’s been easy to forget that the rest of the world continues to face the same challenges that they always have - except this year the support has been harder than ever before to deliver. As MSF says on its website “Our work delivering emergency medical care to vulnerable people in over 70 countries has never been more difficult.”

We hope our donation goes a small way to providing relief to those living in some of the most difficult situations on the planet. And we want to say a huge thanks to those frontline workers and medics around the world 👏👏👏.

The events industry
£2,500 to the Music Venues Trust’s #saveourvenues campaign

Finally, a cause close to our hearts here at Ticket Tailor… the events industry that we live and breathe everyday. It’s been painful seeing some of our best-loved events, venues and attractions either cancelling their events or closing their doors forever. We’ve tried to get as much money as possible to event organisers by allowing over 500k ticket sales for online events to take place on our platform for free, but not everyone could find new ways of making revenue.

Music venues have arguably been some of the hardest hit. Organisations like the Music Venues Trust have been performing a herculean task of bringing the industry together to lobby governments, raise money and provide support to these cultural gems that exist in all of our communities.

So with that said our final pot of donations went to 25 venues across the UK that the Music Venue Trust highlighted as being part of the #SaveOurVenues Red List: the grassroots music venues at most risk of closure. These venues included:

1. Backstage - Kinross
2. The Brunswick - Hove
3. BOOM - Leeds
4. The Hot Tin - Faversham
5. Plot 22 - Sheffield
6. The Waiting Room - London
7. Arden Inn - Accrington
8. The Lantern - Halifax
9. The Post Bar - Tottenham
10. The Rossi Bar - Brighton
11. Dryad Works - Sheffield
12. The Boulevard - Wigan
13. Hootananny Inverness
14. Spiritual Bar - Camden
15. The Railway Inn - Winchester
16. POP - Hyde
17. Venue38 - Ayr
18. The 1865 - Southampton
19. The Woolpack Live - Doncaster
20. Gellions - Inverness
21. Strange Brew - Bristol
22. Waterloo Music Bar - Blackpool
23. Alchemy - Croydon
24. The Venue - Derby
25. Grand Elektra - Hastings

Whether it’s supporting a crowd funding campaign or buying a ticket please be thinking of your local arts venues in the year ahead. What would life be without them!

Thank you to our users for making this possible

Thank you to all of our clients, collaborators, advisors and team members this year. You make our work possible and allow us to support these great causes.