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Sam Nicholls

Senior Lecturer

Sam Nicholls is a Senior Lecturer in Music, teaching music industry and partnering with industry.

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About

Sam Nicholls is a Senior Lecturer in Music, teaching music industry and partnering with industry.

Sam Nicholls is a Senior Lecturer in Music, teaching music industry and partnering with industry.

Before joining University in 2012, Sam worked in the music industry for over ten years in successful roles as a live music promoter, record label director and A and R, musician, songwriter and producer. Alongside his work for the University, Sam is the Director of Music:Leeds / Music Local, supporting the music sector throughout Yorkshire.

Previously, Sam has run a music venue and live promotions company, founded the Dance To The Radio record label and was guitarist in the band iForward, Russia!, signed to Mute / EMI Records in North America as well self-releasing in Europe, achieving two UK Top 40 singles. Managing projects such as Live At Leeds Unconference and Under The Owls, a free music and live art festival in Leeds, led him to be appointed as an advisor for organisations and groups such as Yorkshire Festival, Leeds 2023 Artistic Programme, PRS Foundation and Yorkshire Sound Women Network.

Creating and facilitating conversations in the local music sector, Sam convened the first Music:Leeds event in late 2017, later establishing the organisations as a not-for-profit with the purpose of acting as a centralised point to support, develop, grow and promote music in the city across all levels, genres and cultures. Recently this has expanded to provide support for the music sector throughout Yorkshire through Launchpad, and consultancy on music strategy through Music Local.

Within Leeds Beckett, Sam helped establish the BA (Cons) Music Industries Management course, and leads many music industry-based modules across many undergraduate and postgraduate music courses. He has presented and published work on creating self-sustaining music careers, and regional support for music sectors. In 2017 he coordinated the Universities participation in the AHRC-funded UK Live Music Census.

Research interests

Sam has written on subjects such as fan-funding, diversion of streaming revenue, and audience engagement for independent artists. More recently, he has written on place-based regional interventions to support localised music ecologies and music scenes.

Publications (9)

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Chapter

Audience Engagement and Alternative Revenue Streams

Featured 23 February 2017 The Singer-Songwriter Handbook Bloomsbury
AuthorsAuthors: Nicholls S, Editors: Williams J, Williams K

his chapter looks at how online music distribution platforms are evolving and how singer-songwriters can use them to maximise the revenue achievable through both their music and associated ‘experiences’. Direct to consumer sales, music streaming, subscription models and crowd funding offer fans different ways of interacting with an artist, while platforms such as Patreon, Kickstarter, Bandcamp allow artists to tailor these experiences to more effectively financially exploit their creative works. Kelly’s 1000 True Fans theory provides context to how an artist can build a strong connection with their audience and offer the most suitable product and model of distribution to maximise their income.

Conference Contribution

Fan Funding - creative impetus, financial stimulus & more

Featured 25 March 2013 Severn Pop Network: The Small Economies of the ‘New’ Music Industry United Kingdom

Over the last 5 years, fan funding has become a mainstream approach to financing and releasing new records, with X-factor artists (Janet Devlin) and major record label acts (Bring Me The Horizon) now using platforms such as Pledge Music to launch new music campaigns. Leeds has a history of artist run record labels, and since Pledge Music's inception a string of successful bands from the city have used the fan funding model to finance their releases. Using qualitative interview data, consideration is given to the effectiveness of the fan funding model on a release, how far the support of a local music scene can impact on the success of a campaign and the options available to bands once their campaigns have been completed. The study includes interviews with a wide range of artists; bands who have previously been signed (I Like Trains with Beggars Banquet), bands with major label options (Ellen & The Escapades) and new bands with small local fanbases (Kleine Schweine). This paper endeavours to weigh up the effectiveness of fan funding campaigns against artists’ own creative and financial expectations, as well as whether a local scene or support network has an impact on this – and if there is something in the River Aire specifically!

Conference Contribution

Introducing a Leeds Music Industry & Enterprise Development Network

Featured 20 March 2015 Leeds Music: Culture, Spaces, Scenes Leeds Beckett University
Composition

This Is Broken Lines

Conference Contribution

Developing a Network for Supporting Music Creators and Music Micro-Businesses in the Leeds

Featured 29 June 2017 The Place Of Music Loughborough University

Leeds is one of the most attractive cities to live in, the fastest growing in the UK, with an established traditional cultural offering from organisations such as Opera North and Northern Ballet, alongside a growing portfolio of national significant events such as The Grand Depart and MOBO Awards. However, the cities popular music reputation has never benefited from a coherent identity as enjoyed by Manchester and Liverpool, and organisations, events and platforms for music development such as Yorkshire Forward, Breeze Festival and Bright Young Things have become defunct or extinct. In their place are a number of isolated organisations working within their own limited spheres; the library-service funded Studio 12 supporting young urban music; Festival Republic backed Leeds Music Trust and Chapel FM, focusing primarily on the eastern suburb of Seacroft. This presentation will look at the current infrastructure for supporting aspirational music creators and music professionals, and how it can be built-on and improved to facilitate a wider impact on individuals and the city’s cultural offering, now and in the future. Highlighting the stakeholders in the Leeds music scenes, the status of current working relationships and how existing models in other cities such as Generator (Newcastle) and Promus (Aarhus) can be used as case studies, it will present existing work currently being undertaken to create a network that will facilitate the development of the local music economy in collaboration with Leeds City Council and the cities bid to become European Capital of Culture in Leeds 2023.

Chapter
Music: Leeds – supporting a regionalised music sector and scene
Featured 22 January 2021 Innovation in Music Future Opportunities Routledge: Focal Press
AuthorsAuthors: Thompson P, Nicholls S, Editors: Hepworth-Sawyer R, Paterson J, Toulson R

This chapter discusses a range of strategies and initiatives that have been employed across the city of Leeds (UK) with a critical introduction of the ways in which models from other European cities, feedback and opinion from music professionals, consultation from government officials in Leeds and guidance documents from professional bodies and global consultancy agencies have been implemented in the development of the city’s dedicated and independent organisation Music:Leeds. The chapter discusses the strategies that have been implemented to stimulate music activity around Music:Leeds’ three core areas of activity: Creative Development & Business Growth; Placemaking & Tourism; Access to Music and concludes with an assessment of these strategic developments so far.

Chapter

Music: Leeds – Supporting a Regionalized Music Sector and Scene

Featured 24 November 2023 Popular Music in Leeds Histories, Heritage, People and Places Intellect (UK)
AuthorsAuthors: Nicholls S, Thompson P, Editors: Thompson P, Spracklen K, Ross K, Lashua B

A groundbreaking study of music and musical history in Leeds. This is the first scholarly volume to focus on popular music in Leeds.

Conference Contribution

Collaboration on the UK Live Music Census in Leeds and extended project

Featured 05 July 2017 Practice/Research: A Symposium Leeds Beckett University
AuthorsNicholls S, Thompson P, Lashua B, Bell S
Internet publication

What impact will Brexit have on the music industry?

Featured 01 April 2017 Metro.co.uk
AuthorsBaillie K

Current teaching

  • BA (Hons) Music Industries Management
  • MA Popular Music and Culture

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Sam Nicholls
13351