14 November 2020
Newsdesk
Niall Horan's fans watched his recent Royal Albert Hall livestream from London in such huge numbers he was able to financially support his crew through the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Slow Hands hitmaker was supposed to be touring his new album, Heartbreak Weather, this year, but like acts across the world, he has been forced off the road by the coronavirus crisis.
To ensure he could pay his crew, and help other behind the scenes music professionals, with the We Need Crew fund - Niall performed to an empty Royal Albert Hall earlier this month - with 125,000 fans buying tickets.
Of the amazing response, he tells Music Week magazine: "Oh it's absolutely mad. When I put the idea together I didn't think that we were going to get that many people, but it turns out that it's 125,000 tickets but they reckon it's between two and three people per ticket, which is a joke, right? There'll be 400,000 people there before you know it. It was just amazing."
Praising those who tuned in, he says: "Thanks to all the people that watched, we have raised a lot of money and the kick we need. We Need Crew is going to become effectively a charity now. I'm glad that we can get it off to a good start and I urge other artists to help with that as well. We all have touring crew, we won't be able to stick the show on without them."
The star also believes that getting back to work was good for his touring team's mental health - as it gave them a sense of purpose.
"I don't think people want to talk about (money), I mean obviously people are not going to start mentioning money," Niall explains. "It's not one of those things that you talk about on a daily basis but it was more of the idea of like, ‘Jesus it's good to be back doing what we actually do.'"
