‘Being a musician is really expensive’, says singer calling for NI funding

Susie Blue, a singer-songwriter who lives in Belfast, is passionate about her craft saying “art isn’t a luxury, it’s a necessity”.

Funding “would mean that musicians could actually take time to be musicians rather than have to worry about their day job,” Blue said.

“Every musician that I know has a day job, whether it’s in the arts or not. Sometimes it’s in a cafe or in an office or it is within the arts itself, booking gigs or doing production or something.

“It would be great to have something where we could just take a minute and actually do what we want.”

The Arts Council of Northern Ireland, external (ACNI), funded by the Department for Communities and the National Lottery, provides some financial help to support artists.

Blue says that there are some grants in Northern Ireland that musicians can apply for but “they can’t help everyone” adding that: “you’re very lucky if you get those grants”.

“It’s hard to know what you want to do next year when you’re a musician, because you don’t know if you’ll have the funds.

“It’s hard to plan something and apply for funding just to have the funding cancelled or denied.