At the FACAGM taking place on Thursday (November 6), Imogen Heap, Katie Melua and Roxanne de Bastion will be standing down as board directors after serving almost 10 years. Here, in a jointly penned piece for Music Week they look back on the organisation’s achievements…

With the Featured Artists Coalition AGM taking place this Thursday, all three of us will be standing down as board directors.

(This isn’t a resignation letter btw! We’ve each been involved with this beloved organisation for around 10 years, not only as board members, but also as a CEO and artist in residence and a community lead. It’s just high time for some new voices to step in and take us another step forward.)

The purpose of the FAC, when it was founded in 2009, was to provide artists a voice.

Back then, as a storm raged around illegal filesharing and Pirate Bay, it was typically record labels and music executives who contributed to debates about “the industry”. Artists may have been at the sharp end of those challenges, but our views tended to be co-opted by those who “owned” our rights. They spoke in our name.

In one swoop, the FAC changed that.

Imogen Heap: “During my tenure as interim CEO and then as the artist in residence, I felt it important to unify creator-led bodies (The Ivor’s Academy, FAC, MMF, MPG, MU) to be a louder voice, to complement the ‘biz’ side in a single voice. I became one of the founding members and first patron of the Council of Music Makers.

“The intention was to help drive innovation and solutions to help strengthen artists’ abilities to create change, clean up payment flows and data integrity. As artists we have the responsibility to ensure that all the credit information is in our releases – the future of integrity around IP relies on this data being correct, particularly essential now, in regard to permissions, licensing, AI, training and preferences. I’ll always be sticking my oar in still, you ain’t seen the back of me yet!”

Katie Melua: “For me, the most important aspect of the journey has been about artists uniting, and our voice being recognised as a mature and respected one. There’s now a direct bridge between us as creators and the issues that affect us.

“In the past, artists were often isolated, protected by their representatives but disconnected from one another. The FAC has changed that. It’s built a genuine community among featured artists, both in an official capacity and, most importantly, among those of us who care deeply about the next generation of creators and who strive for a healthy, colourful, and sustainable music industry.”

Roxanne de Bastion: “Over our time with the FAC, the organisation has also done an extraordinary amount of important work lifting the lid and shining a light on the realities of music making. Being an ‘independent’ or ‘unsigned’ artist used to have negative connotations, but we've changed that by building a strong community that empowers artists to be entrepreneurs and in control of their own careers.

“It's thanks to all of the advocacy work, and event series such as FAC's artist entrepreneur in particular, that really spearheaded this movement. Now, it's widely understood that the artist should be the driving force in any career and that being ‘independent’ is not an indicator of failure, but rather a reflection of an industry in which artists thrive in spite of a lack of traditional infrastructure or support.”

Whether working on our own, as part of the CMM, or alongside our industry partners at LIVE and UK Music, the FAC is an organisation that can articulate our thoughts and feelings. And as the music business has evolved, fragmented, contracted – occasionally innovated – and morphed into supposedly more ‘artist-centric’ forms, that voice has been needed more than ever.

“Over our time with the FAC, the organisation has done an extraordinary amount of important work lifting the lid and shining a light on the realities of music making”

Roxanne de Bastion

Over recent years, and through fresh challenges – Brexit, Covid, the distribution of streaming revenues, the crisis in grassroots touring, the application of AI – the FAC has continued to speak on our behalf in boardrooms, in the media and in the corridors of power.

The interventions around live music have been especially important.

For many artists, touring is the rock foundation of their business. It’s where audiences are developed, and where merchandise and records are sold. Live performance remains the most fundamental way that music can travel. It retains a unique power and magnetism.

That’s why the FAC has campaigned so vociferously on issues like post-Brexit touring (#LetTheMusicMove) and against outdated venue commissions on artist merchandise sales (100% Venues).

To artists of all backgrounds, this is the stuff that really matters.

For although the live music business is a relatively complex ecosystem, it will always be built on the talent of artists. Ultimately, it’s they who entice ticket buyers to venues and festivals, setting off an economic ripple effect that benefits everyone from hoteliers and train operators to camping shops and breweries.

As explained eloquently in Parliament by English Teacher’s Lily Fontaine, artists are also business owners. They employ everyone from tour managers, musicians, booking agents and sound engineers to hire companies, drivers, photographers and accountants. If live music is unsustainable for us – the engine room – then all the other wheels grind to a halt.

Lily’s testimony, before the Culture, Media & Sport Committee, was actually a real breakthrough moment.

Delivered at an inquiry session about the dire financial situation facing grassroots venues, the attending MPs left that session with a clear understanding that the need for support was far wider.

Subsequently, in May 2024, the Committee recommended the introduction of a ‘live music levy’ on large-scale music events, that it should be collected by an independent LIVE Trust and distributed to “venues, artists and promoters”.

Given that artists were cut out of all Covid relief packages – and, to be honest, every other government support package – our inclusion felt unbelievably welcome.

We felt seen. We felt listened to.

Eighteen months on, and this process is gaining momentum. The LIVE Trust is up and running, trustees have been appointed, and millions of pounds have been committed from per-ticket contributions at shows from the likes of Pulp, Ed Sheeran, Radiohead, My Chemical Romance and many, many others.

In response, the FAC is also on the home straight of establishing a UK Artist Touring (UKAT) Fund, which can distribute the artist share of revenue collected by the LIVE Trust. The aim is for the fund to provide tour support – plugging gaps, keeping shows on the road and benefitting as many artists as possible.

Backed by our friends at MU and MMF, we sincerely hope the UKAT Fund will go on to deliver on its potential, and that it will retain the support and trust of our industry partners.

That’s a legacy of which we’d be truly proud.

Imogen Heap, Katie Melua and Roxanne de Bastion reflect on a decade serving as FAC board directors