This Week in UK & Ireland Music: Monthly PRS Payouts, Fleadh's £53m Afterglow and Funding Wins from Scotland to Wales
By Written by Peter McVeigh
Belfast counts the cost and the crowds after Fleadh Cheoil, PRS members get paid monthly for the first time, and fresh funding lands in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland this week, alongside a somber moment for the Irish music community.
Belfast's Fleadh delivers a bigger economic boost than anyone forecast
Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann wrapped up in Belfast on 9 August after an eight day run that drew well over a million visitors, more than double the original 700,000 estimate, and generated an economic boost the BBC put at over £53 million, again ahead of early projections. It was the first time the festival, the world's largest celebration of traditional Irish music, has been held in Belfast, and organisers say it leaned hard into cross community participation, with musicians from Loyalist, Unionist and minority ethnic traditions taking part alongside the traditional Irish music scene.
Belfast City Council has already secured the rights to host it again in August 2027. For managers and venues across Northern Ireland, this is the clearest recent proof that trad and community focused programming can pull serious tourism money into a city, not just a festival site.
Sources: https://www.insidermedia.com/news/ireland/major-economic-boost-expected-from-fleadh-cheoil-na-heireann and https://belfastcity.gov.uk/News/Safe-and-vibrant-Fleadh-Cheoil-2026-takes-shape-as
PRS for Music moves to monthly royalty payouts
From 15 August, PRS for Music started paying eligible members their online streaming royalties every month instead of quarterly, covering multi territory licensing income from Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube and similar services. It follows last year's cut to the MTOL admin rate, which PRS projects will return an extra £47 million to members by 2030.
If you write and perform and haven't checked your PRS payment settings recently, this is worth a look, faster payment cycles make a real difference to cash flow for working musicians.
Source: https://www.musicweek.com/publishing/read/prs-for-music-speeds-up-royalty-payments-to-members-from-streaming-platforms/092456
Scotland: two funding routes open for emerging artists
Creative Scotland has put £67,500 into its Forward Fund, launched 6 August, to top up Kickstarter campaigns from Scotland based creators across music, film, games and more, once a campaign hits 25% of its target. Separately, the Sound of Young Scotland Award is open for entries, offering up to £10,000 towards a debut album, with the winner announced at the SAY Award ceremony in Dundee on 5 November.
Two different funding shapes, crowdfunding top up versus a straight album grant, both worth a look depending on where you are in your project.
Sources: https://www.creativescotland.com/news-stories/latest-news/archive/2026/08/new-gbp67.5k-funds-for-scotlands-creators and https://www.creativescotland.com/news-stories/latest-news/archive/2026/07/sound-of-young-scotland-award-launches-search-for-new-talent
Wales: Horizons puts £60,000 behind 32 artists and labels
Arts Council of Wales' Horizons/Gorwelion programme announced its latest round of Launchpad Funding, splitting £60,000 across 32 Welsh artists and independent labels. Horizons has now backed more than 450 artists over the past decade, including Adwaith, Panic Shack and Melin Melyn, and the announcement landed alongside this year's National Eisteddfod, which ran 1 to 8 August.
Worth flagging for any Wales based act still building a case for the next funding round, this is a programme with a genuine track record of backing artists who go on to bigger things.
Source: https://arts.wales/news-jobs-opportunities/horizonsgorwelion-32-welsh-artists-watch-2026
Ireland's music community says goodbye to Glen Hansard
Glen Hansard, the Oscar winning songwriter behind The Frames and Once, died on 29 July after a motorcycle crash near Dublin, aged 56. Over 11,000 people attended a public wake in Dublin on 3 August, and his funeral at St Patrick's Cathedral the following day drew figures from across Irish and international music, including Hozier, Imelda May and his former Once co-star Marketa Irglova. IMRO, the Irish Music Rights Organisation, paid tribute to him as one of Ireland's most gifted and generous songwriters.
For a generation of Irish singer-songwriters, Hansard's DIY path from Grafton Street busker to Academy Award winner is still one of the clearest proofs that the road up doesn't have to start anywhere fancy.
Sources: https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/2026/0803/1586248-glen-hansard/ and https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/08/01/gardai-trying-to-piece-together-glen-hansards-last-movements-in-west-dublin/
IMRO opens the search for its next chief executive
Separately, IMRO has begun recruiting a new Chief Executive following the retirement of long serving CEO Victor Finn. Worth watching for anyone tracking how Ireland's performing rights landscape develops over the next few years, IMRO's most recent report put the Irish music industry's economic contribution at around 1 billion euro annually, supporting over 13,400 jobs.
Source: https://imro.ie/news/
England: a bigger Music Growth Package and two trade missions
The Government's Music Growth Package for 2026 to 2029 has grown from its original £30 million to £45 million with extra funding from Arts Council England, and will back over 2,000 projects supporting more than 40,000 artists and industry professionals, with up and coming and mid career artists, managers, labels and publishers all in scope for the first time. Separately, the BPI, the Department for Business and Trade and regional partners are running trade missions to Japan and Australia this month, aimed at UK artists and labels looking to build audiences abroad.
Sources: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/turn-it-up-our-plan-for-music/turn-it-up-our-plan-for-music and https://www.ppluk.com/about-us/news/prs-foundation-expands-its-talent-development-network-for-2025-2026/