Sofar Sounds, a global community giving a voice to emerging artists and curating unique performances across more than 400 cities globally, is celebrating the nominations of nine of its alumni artists in this year’s MTV Music Video Awards. Sofar Sounds is an artist services company at its core, shining a light on local, independent touring artists, helping them navigate a difficult to penetrate landscape. Since 2009, the company has worked with and supported many artists who started playing intimate living room shows to now performing at sold out stadiums around the world. The company is most known for its secret concerts held at unique, unexpected venues and currently hosts shows with more than 40,000 artists around the world.
Artists such as Billie Eilish, Ed Sheeran and Jack Harlow generated some of their first fans at Sofar Shows and have since gone on to perform world tours. The team at Sofar Sounds is dedicated to giving all artists at any stage of their career a platform to share their work and connect with fans. Recently, the company acquired Seated, known for its direct-to-fan ticketing and VIP services, to create additional tools that will help artists own their data and create authentic offerings for fanbases of all sizes.
Sofar Sounds recognizes the following alumni for nominations in this year’s MTV Video Music Awards, making up 24 total nominations across diverse categories:
- Billie Eilish: Song of the Year, Best Pop, Best Longform Video, Best Direction, Best Visual Effects
- Charli XCX: Best Metaverse Performance
- Ed Sheeran: Video of the Year, Artist of the Year, Best Pop, Best Cinematography, Best Direction
- Jack Harlow: Video of the Year, Artist of the Year, Best Collaboration, Best Direction, Best Art Direction
- Madame X: Best Longform Video
- Mae Muller: Push Performance of the Year
- Omar Apollo: Push Performance of the Year
- Remi Wolf: Push Performance of the Year
- GAYLE: Best New Artist, Push Performance of the Year
“No matter what stage of their career, Sofar celebrates all artists for their contributions to local music scenes. Big or small, artists power Sofar’s in-person music discovery and drive the pulse of the business. The entire team is focused on helping artists connect with new fans through in-person, live music discovery, which is what we’ve found builds passionate fan bases and leads to long-term success,” said Jim Lucchese, CEO of Sofar Sounds. “It’s exciting to see artists who have performed with Sofar receive recognition from some of the industry’s most notable organizations, reinforcing why Sofar Sounds was started. We can’t wait to watch our artists’ growth in the coming year.”
These nominations are just a few of recent recognitions within the Sofar artist community. More than 100 artists who performed at Sofar shows have been nominated for a Grammy, with 24 Sofar alumni nominated for a Grammy in 2022 alone. Since 2009, Sofar Sounds has facilitated connections between artists and fans through more than 10,000 boutique music events per year, in 400+ cities across the globe.
