# The Proms charities collection throughout COVID in 2020

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2020/09/05/2020-collection-update-september-2020/
- Published: 2020-09-05T12:06:00+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**The traditional charity collection from BBC Proms audiences at the Royal Albert
Hall in London, and from international audiences online, has faced a considerable
challenge this year, like all charities.**

As of 21:00 today, 5 September, the total stands at [£2,880](https://promenadersmusicalcharities.com/history/charities-supported/support-by-year/2020-season/),
of which **£2,065** has been pledged to Help Musicians UK, and **£815** to CLIC 
Sargent.

The first sign that some kind of appeal would still be possible came when, on 28
May 2020, the BBC announced that the 2020 season of the Sir Henry Wood Proms would
still go ahead this summer, albeit in an alternative format. At that point the Promenaders’
Musical Charities could only state that they were “in the process of determining
what we can do to continue to support musical charities throughout the 2020 Proms
season and will announce further details on this in due course”.

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Once the online giving pages had been set up, recognising that in-person attendance
at the Proms was not going to happen, the first total was announced on 9 August.
By 16.30 that day the total stood at **£2,350**, of which £1,620 had been pledged
to Help Musicians UK, and £730 to CLIC Sargent.

## Live Proms

By 28 August it was possible to host two weeks of “live Proms”. The first night 
performance came from the Proms’ usual venue of the Royal Albert Hall, but further
performances would involve “a wider geographic spread than usual”.

At that point there was still no live audience permitted in any venue, so there 
was no change for the collecting buckets to be brandished.

The online collection stood at **£2,710** (£1,955 for Help Musicians and £755 for
CLIC Sargent). In contrast, at that date last year the total stood at almost **£
80,000**.

David Underdown of the Promenaders’ Music Charities said:

“It’s obviously a difficult time for everyone, but the arts have been particularly
badly hit, with any musicians’ freelance earnings almost entirely disappearing. 
For children already struggling with the impact of finding they have cancer or leukaemia
the added stresses of being in hospital during a pandemic make the music therapy
service offered by CLIC Sargent more important than ever too”.

He thanked all those who had donated so far.