Midnight Mango Lockdown Fund

★★★ALBUM IS STILL AVAILABLE FROM HERE★★★

We're leaving this page up and functioning for those who want a copy of the album. All other rewards have been closed now. £20 is enough to get you a copy, tho of course you can donate more if you wish.

Now the project has finished, we won't automatically know you want the album - so please message us with your postal address at the same time - and we'll get your reward to you straight away.

To send a message click the "Contact Project" link above.

Thanks to everyone who has donated so far!

Matt & The Team at Midnight Mango.

★★★

Dear Music Fan,

Hope you are well,

I am writing to let you know about our new initiative the Midnight Mango Lockdown Fund, designed to

HELP LIVE MUSIC BOOKING AGENTS KEEP WORKING.

…and the fantastic reward we have created. (Amongst others...)

★LOCKDOWN SONGS★ - On Turquoise vinyl!

…info and track listing at the bottom of this page.

The live music industry has been decimated. Behind every performance there is a booking agent, they are essential to the industry. They book the shows between artist and promoter. The income they generate comes from shows and since there are no shows there is no income. This means many agents have been made redundant. Expertise is being lost from the industry and livelihoods have been broken.

You might think this means there is no work.

YOU COULDN’T BE MORE WRONG!

There are still future shows to book and many to reschedule, so there is more work than ever. Just no money coming in... ☹️

ZERO, NADA, NIL, NIC, NICHTS

Whilst the work agents do might not be viable now - It is just as viable in the future as it ever was.

Almost all the government schemes to date, require workers to stop working to claim. This doesn’t work for agents - The work they do now creates revenue 6 to 12 months in the future. They need to keep working.

The Midnight Mango Lockdown Fund will hold money that will be used to create freelance work positions within Midnight Mango to keep agents working through this difficult time.

★We pledge 100% of the money raised, will be used to create work for live music booking agents.

★We pledge to match fund, pound for pound what is raised by this Crowdfunder up to our £5000 target. That could mean a fund of £10,000 in total. We could do really great work with that!

★We pledge to keep in touch and tell you precisely how the money is spent. It will be spent on agents left high and dry by this pandemic.

Just £20 will reward you with the truly exclusive turquoise vinyl album LOCKDOWN SONGS. Postage and packaging included anywhere in the world. We wanted to make the reward fantastic and within reach of as many people as possible.

DISC MANUFACTURING SERVICES (DMS) a global music manufacturer also based in the Southwest, has graciously donated the entire pressing of the records. We are both committed to helping our industry wherever we can, and their generous gesture and partnership came at exactly the right time to make this Crowdfunder possible.

Thanks for reading down this far!

Kind Regards

Matt Bartlett
Managing Director
Midnight Mango
Live Music Booking Agency

P.S. 100% of the money raised will go towards the aims of the project.

P.P.S. The track-listing for LOCKDOWN SONGS is at the bottom of this page

*** *** ***

…read on for further detail about Midnight Mango, how the pandemic has affected our industry and what we are doing about it...

*** *** ***

We are MIDNIGHT MANGO and we represent around 80 fantastic artists, booking their live shows into venues and festivals around the world. In the year 2019/20, we booked around 1,400 shows employed six people full time, plus we created work for freelancers and part-time staff. In 2019 we were awarded AGENCY OF THE YEAR at The UK Festival Awards and people said lots of lovely things about us HERE.

Here is a picture of the core team in 2019 (Ethan beamed in from London!)

In March 2020, COVID 19 struck and reduced our income to zero. Since then we have cut costs and innovated where we can. like many others, we have relied on furlough and government grants to stay afloat. We too were forced to make redundancies. The sad truth for our industry is that we don't expect a return to viability until a vaccine has been introduced which is not expected until later in 2021.

Disc Manufacturing Services have a solid reputation as well-respected, recommended and reliable manufacturers of vinyl records and discs worldwide, having grown organically alongside with some of the most successful independent labels and artists out there today. They have a rich history of supporting educational and environmental projects, as well as grassroots music and organisations. Dave Summers of DMS realised that we would be in a dark place due to COVID-19, and approached us with an offer to donate a limited edition vinyl pressing. Effectively helping us to help ourselves through this difficult time.

So we set about asking some of our fabulous artists to donate a track and came up with a truly great compilation album. It is called LOCKDOWN SONGS.

During the time we were developing this project, Midnight Mango received a grant via Arts Council England to keep a skeleton crew in business until March 2021. We also borrowed money via government schemes. The combination of these two factors changed the financial dynamic in the company and allowed us to consider how we could raise money to help people outside the company.

That is how we came up with the idea of running a Crowdfunder to help booking agents by creating freelance positions within our company. We are based in rural Somerset, but our agents work remotely, so these opportunities will be open to agents anywhere in the UK.

There are so many people who have been impacted by COVID 19 we couldn't just ask for cash with no reward. Instead, we have produced a truly collectable and beautiful item to distribute. This has all been made possible by the generosity of DMS and THE ARTISTS that we represent.

This is just one of our initiatives to help people in the industry, we successfully raised lottery grant funding through Arts Council England to present socially distanced shows at an outstanding grassroots venue, BATH KOMEDIA. These shows will provide paid work for artists, crew, promoters, venues and many others. They will also be broadcasted to other venues so they, in turn, can attract socially distanced audiences. We are determined to continue with our work helping our artists and our staff at this time.

The way we work has been turned on its head. Where once we were viable, competitive and commercially successful, now we are a part of a community which is collectively trying to breathe and make it back to the music.

Our vision is to get back to profitability by the spring of 2022. We intend to do this by all methods available and we plan to get there as a better, stronger and more resilient company. We are innovating using new performance models such as live-streamed and socially distanced shows. We have reduced our salaries, our overheads, quit our office, taken the business online and borrowed funds.

We may not be viable now, but we will be again in the future! Our challenge is to survive and to help as many others survive until a vaccine has been rolled out! That's what this Crowdfunder is about.

Thanks for reading folks! Please donate :-)

MIDNIGHT MANGO LOCKDOWN SONGS

If you want to find out more about the artists on the record - click on their name to go to their website.

SIDE A

1. Miss Dis N Dat - Neville & Sugary Staple

2. Dangerous - Amy Montgomery

3. Cry Of The Celt - Ferocious Dog

4. Kiss Me Girl - Hands Off Gretel

5. Sugar Water Sunday - Mad Dog Mcrea

SIDE B

6. Diamond Ring - The Dead South

7. Monsters - CoCo & The Butterfields

8. Luna Park - Tankus The Henge

9. Just The Thrill - Molotov Jukebox

10. The Wisdom Of Standing Still - Kathryn Roberts and Sean Lakeman