Celebrating the best of Northern music in Liverpool

The Brief

After successfully launching the very first Northern Music Awards for the UK’s largest music therapy charity, Nordoff and Robbins in 2024 in Manchester, our brief for this year’s event, held in Liverpool, was to celebrate the wealth of musical talent in the region, promote the awards and raise awareness of the charity’s critical work across the north of England. 

Insights and Approach

Work began months ahead of the event. A series of press releases announced the performance line-up and headline award winners to deliver a raft of media coverage. As well as building excitement and prompting ticket sales, the outreach enabled us to secure pre-event interviews with artists, presenters and spokespeople. 

We pitched and secured a prime feature on BBC 1’s The One Show showcasing the charity’s work which ran the evening before the awards. This focused on Blossoms, winners of Music Moment of the Year, visiting Contact Theatre in Manchester with The One Show’s presenter to take part in a music therapy session with a group of young men who have had mental health struggles. 

We also demonstrated the range of people Nordoff and Robbins support with music therapy by arranging for shortlisted and performing artist, Chiedu Oraka, to visit Asylum Link Merseyside to join a group music therapy session. We secured exclusive in depth pieces with ITV Granada and Liverpool Echo that included messaging around the Northern Music Awards and Nordoff and Robbins’ vital work. 

The media room was buzzing with journalists from TV, radio, national and local outlets including: The Guardian, ITV Granada, BBC Radio, Liverpool Echo, Getty and many more. We liaised with management to ensure that all winners were happy to attend the pre awards media line up, resulting in legendary artists Dr. John Cooper Clarke, Ian Broudie, Blossoms and Rick Astley along with newer talent such as Nia Archives, English Teacher, Chiedu Oraka and Luvcat being interviewed and posing for step and repeat photography. We also secured a prime interview slot with ITV Granada for the charity’s CEO, Sandra Schembri to communicate Nordoff and Robbins’ key messages.  

The Outcome

The high quality, wide-ranging media coverage included pieces across TV, radio, print, online and social media content. A mix of interviews, event news and in-depth features meant that the messaging about both the Northern Music Awards and, importantly, Nordoff and Robbins’ critical music therapy work and its impact, was delivered in a variety of ways to a wide audience.  

An exclusive with PA Media for the post-event story led to extensive coverage that featured details of the winners, artist quotes, charity CEO quote and messaging about the music therapy charity’s work. 

Securing the first story on The One Show meant that the impact of Nordoff and Robbins’ music therapy, and news of the Northern Music Awards, was seen by the 2.17 million people tuning in – a 20.5% share of the audience of all UK TV viewing public at the time of broadcast.