PACE music fund stands for Promotional Advance Career Exposure and is designed to support high-quality artists and labels grow exponentially.
PACE allows you to access up to 100% advanced funds for your music promotional needs and delivers increased royalty revenue, PR exposure and career growth. This is all combined with free distribution, music publishing & sync representation once accepted onto the scheme.
How It Works
Once applied and have been accepted into the PACE music fund, you will be presented with an offer of an advance % towards our promotional services, whereby we will fund, up to 100% of the fees, which is recoupable against future sales & publishing royalties. There is no obligation for you to accept the offer or continue, so you’re always in control of any final decision.
Our team of music professionals will discuss your goals and needs and in turn, create a custom plan to accelerate your career.
Working In Partnership
As a company and brand, our main goal has always been to empower and support independent artists in any way that we can. The PACE music fund helps us to continue that mission without the pressures of affordability for the artists, in essence, we become investors in your music, but without taking any copyright control unlike labels and publishers.
Our promotions team are a collection of dedicated, experienced specialists. Our approach is tailored to suit each artist’s needs, where we carefully plan each campaign to deliver success and maximise your results. With decades of experience in the music industry, we’ll work on making you a sustainly career in the business.
How To Apply
To qualify for PACE you must use our platform to distribute all your copyrighted music (including cover versions), and use our music publishing administration service for all your songs as this is how we will recoup any advances from your future royalties and we require you onboard to evaluate your traction.
PACE is designed for artists and rights holders who have an existing portfolio of songs released and who are a registered member of a performing rights organization (PRO), such as ASCAP, BMI, PRS for Music or any other body based in your territory. Under some circumstances, we will consider new artists that don’t have a track record of royalty collection, but this will require the songs and artist to be of exceptional talent.
If you believe you qualify, please sign-up to start your application process.
FAQ
Is there a minimum term for PACE?
Yes, once accepted onto the scheme it is a minimum of 12 months from signing the agreement or until the recoupment of any advances has been completed.
Can someone STOP using the promotional services during the PACE term?
Yes, we will not force you to use our services and you are able to stop the advances at any time you see fit, but any campaigns started will be completed and any previous campaigns will be recoupable under the agreement terms.
What happens if I get signed to a record label or publishing company or both?
This isn’t an issue whatsoever, you can stop PACE at any time and immediately withdraw from the agreement on full recoupment of any advanced fees, which could be covered by yourself or the label/publisher you are signing to.
Do I have to put all my digital distribution and publishing admin through Music Gateway?
Yes, this will be how we will recoup our advances, so you must use our services for us to claim your royalties. You must move all your copyrights to our services for a minimum of three months before you can apply.
How do I know if I match the criteria?
To be considered, you should have an existing portfolio of songs already released and be a registered member of a performing rights organization (PRO), such as ASCAP, BMI, PRS for Music. Ultimately our goal is to support talented individuals, so if you are not yet a member of any organisation, artists of exceptional talent may be considered.
Factors included in the final decision include:
– Quality of music
– Traction with digital sales (streaming)
– Previous royalty payouts from PROs
– Future release plans
Can I leave and come back where I left off?
No, you can only leave once we have recouped the advance you received from us at Music Gateway.
Can Any Account Type Apply?
No. Members must have an Adventurer, Influencer or Game Changer account. Free users must upgrade to apply.
Music Fund (PACE)
As an aspiring artist or old and young musicians alike will know, one of the biggest challenges musicians face is funding. The majority of business models within the music industry are naturally risk heavy – i.e. you spend money on making a record, manufacturing your record, making merchandise and promoting your music and then you hope to recoup your investment from sales of your record (royalty income) and sky-rocketing your music career.
And for many musicians, especially those at the start of their careers, there is the challenge to raise funding to actually make and promote your record to be in a position to make that initial investment. Here we’ll look at some of the funding programmes available and explore how to get funding for a music project.
What Is Music Funding?
Music funding takes a few different forms depending on the purpose of the funding and the aims of the organisation awarding it. The main types of funding are:
Project Funding
This is where an organisation provides financial assistance to a specific project. It could be a specific production or recording project and will generally have a fixed timeframe and deliverable.
Development funding
This is a grant for artists to develop their talent and explore their creativity. This is often awarded to individuals who operate in culturally significant areas that are often potentially not as lucrative financially.
Music Relief Fund
Music relief funding grew significantly during 2020 and 2021 but has been around for some time. In a nutshell, a music relief fund is aimed at supporting musicians who have fallen on hard times. Musicians operate in a volatile industry with a lot of moving parts and this type of funding aims to help musicians in the event that work falls through.
Crowd Funding
Through a number of different platforms, artists can look to mobilise a fanbase to invest to achieve funding either for specific shows, tours or records, or for subscription-based models to provide general income support.
Partnership Funding
Partnership funding is more in the vein of a business relationship where the organisation providing the finance first invests in the artist or project in question and is able to recoup their investment from future earnings (through record or ticket sales and/or publishing revenue, etc.)
How to Get Funding for Music
If you have searched ‘fund my band’ or ‘fund my music’ online, you have probably come across a number of different sites and options and it can become quite overwhelming. Here are a few different options for funding:
Government Led Funding
Generally, government departments have some dedicated funding for the creative industries which usually is either project or development funding. The level of funding will vary depending on where you are located but in the UK you have The Arts Council England, Arts Council Wales and Creative Scotland.
In the US, funding is generally more at a state level but you have programmes such as the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation and the Tennessee Arts Commission.
The Canada Council for the Arts also has 6 different grants to promote the cultural output of Canadian creatives.
If you are looking at funding from an organisation or from the government, then you will need to complete an application. Each grant programme tends to have its own rules about who is eligible so be sure to check the eligibility requirements.
Funding is always super competitive so it’s good to spend some time on making sure the application is perfect. Help Musicians UK have put together a really good Top Tips for funding applications on their website.
Organisational funding
Organisational funding is typically project, development or music relief and is awarded by entities such as the PRS through their Music Foundation, Help Musicians UK, The London Music Fund (which is focussed on education in the capital and has the Mayor of London as patron) and the BPI Music Growth Export Scheme in the UK.
As with government funding, it’s incredibly competitive – so again, try to make sure you applying at the right time in your career and that your application is as strong as possible.
Crowd Funding
There are a number of crowd funding platforms including Kickstarter, IndieGoGo and RocketFuel. These platforms generally have you establish a minimum finance amount that you want to raise. People can then pay money towards your goal with the pay-out if you reach the goal target. There are often different levels at which you can invest in exchange for different rewards – these can be exclusive content, unique package offerings, etc. and can really drive up the value of your investment proposal if you have a fanbase willing to invest in your music.
Along a slightly different line, you also have platforms such as Patreon. These are essentially the modern-day equivalent of a fan club. Users pay a monthly subscription to your Patreon and in return, they get exclusive content. This can be physical products, meet and greets, exclusive Q&A sessions, a first peek at new releases – whatever you want to give your fan club.
Partnership Funding
In the US, organisations such as The Music Fund offer grants of up to $50,000 in exchange for a percentage of future royalties. To qualify for The Music Fund financial input, there is a caveat that artists have earned at least $5,000 from streaming in a 12 month period. Distributors like AWAL and Kobalt also offer similar programmes.
Music Gateway have recently launched a really interesting new offering supporting independent musicians in this area called PACE. Once you have applied and been accepted into the PACE music fund, you will be presented with an offer of an advance % towards the promotional services that Music Gateway offer (including plugging, PR, Spotify Promo, digital marketing, etc.), whereby Music Gateway will fund up to 100% of the fees, which is recoupable against future sales & publishing royalties. There is no obligation for you to accept the offer or continue, so you’re always in control of any final decision.
That Was Our Guide To Music Funding!
As we’ve highlighted, music funding in the form of grants can be very competitive but they can be a great way of financing projects.
Partnership funding can often be a little easier to secure and has the added benefit of incentivising the partner providing the funding to support you in your music goals as they also benefit from the commercial success of your music. Having an experienced and motivated partner can be very beneficial in also helping you understand the best ways to invest your funding in order to achieve your goals.
Crowd funding has the lowest bar to entry but has the drawback that you don’t receive any money unless you reach your goal for funding so you do need a motivated fan base. You also don’t receive 100% of the money you raise after the platform has taken their cut so it can be an expensive way to raise funds.
