‘Butts 4 Tour Busses’: Kate Nash starts OnlyFans to fund tour

English singer-songwriter Kate Nash has started an OnlyFans account to help fund her latest European tour.

The ‘Foundations’ singer launched her “Butts for Tour Busses” campaign on the subscription service that is popular with pornography content creators. A subscription to Nash’s channel costs $10 (€9.60) a month.

In a statement on the campaign, Nash said: “Whilst touring is the best job EVER it is currently technically what you might call a passion project for a lot of artists in 2024. A recent survey by Pirate Studios found that whilst gig ticket & festival prices are sky rocketing & we are seeing a select few in the industry become millionaires or even billionaires from touring, the majority of musicians and artists are struggling to be able afford to actually play shows.”

“Costs of travel, accommodation, food, promotion & employees have also gone up in price but musicians are not seeing changes in their gig fees to help pay for all these rising costs. So this Christmas I’m asking that buy either a piece of my merch or my arse on my new ONLYFANS account katenyash87 to support me paying great wages & putting on a high quality show as I will not sacrifice either of things. (No need to stream my music, I’m good for the 0.003 of a penny per stream thanks) Pogue Mahone everyone! 🍑❤️” she continued.

Nash has just started a new tour to promote her fifth album ‘9 Sad Symphonies’. Starting last night in Glasgow, the tour will will travel across venues in the UK before dates in the Netherlands, Germany, France, and Ireland.

As Nash notes that “touring makes losses not profits,” she’s the latest musician to highlight difficulties the music industry faces in keeping live events financially sustainable for artists. While big names like Oasis, Taylor Swift and Sabrina Carpenter can charge huge sums for their international tours, smaller artists are struggling.

In recent years, popular acts like American indie band Animal Collective, singer Santigold, and rockers The Black Keys have all had to cancel plans to tour internationally due to high overheads.

Live music is still highly profitable for a country’s economy. A 2023 report revealed that music tourism brought in £6.6 billion (€7.7 billion) to the UK last year.

Nash isn’t the only musician looking to OnlyFans for an extra income stream. Lily Allen launched her own OnlyFans page earlier this year – also with a $10 monthly subscription plan – to post images and videos of her feet.

With the low amount that artists make through streaming services like Spotify, Allen responded to criticism on X that: “imagine being an artist and having nearly 8 million monthly listeners on Spotify but earning more money from having 1,000 people subscribe to pictures of your feet. don’t hate the player, hate the game.”

Last year, we reported on the dire state of the live music scene in the UK with 125 venues shutting down in the prior 12 months. Those venues represented 15.7% of the sector and were primarily grassroots spots where smaller artists make their names.

There is work to tackle this problem. Last week, the UK government said it would introduce a voluntary levy on tickets for concerts at stadiums and arenas to help fund the smaller venues which have struggled in recent years after the pandemic and rising inflation.