Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo and Sam Fender: 5 artists who are using their platform for good
For decades, the music industry has seen a range of musicians who have used their influence to speak out against world issues, but now we are seeing a new wave of artists advocating for positive change. Weather that is through their powerful lyrics, charitable donations or candidness surrounding their own experiences and opinions, fans are reminded daily of their impact within society. Music has ways of creating movement through emotional responses, uniting people as one.
1. Billie Eilish
Despite her difficult time in the spotlight, particularly being in the industry from such a young age, Billie Eilish has and continues to, advocate for a range of global issues. Most recently, she donated £10 million from her latest tour ‘Hit Me Hard and Soft’ to charities dedicated to food equity and combating the climate crisis. Her speech at the WSJ Innovator Awards sparked conversation regarding billionaires’ greed and their lack of contribution and awareness to wider societal issues.
Eilish has set a new standard for sustainable touring, turning the whole of the tour into a vegan haven. So much so that her four sold out dates at the Co-Op Live have become a case study for the Goal Standard. This study shows that 3,500,000 litres of water were avoided being used in just those four shows alone. Eilish continues to be a role model to people around the world, each tour making people more climate cautious.
Billie Eilish Credit: Raph, Wikimedia
Billie Eilish Credit: Raph, Wikimedia
Billie Eilish, Credit: Sophie Iles
Billie Eilish, Credit: Sophie Iles
Olivia Rodrigo, Credit: Raph, Wikimedia
Olivia Rodrigo, Credit: Raph, Wikimedia
Olivia Rodrigo, Credit: Raph, Wikimedia
Olivia Rodrigo, Credit: Raph, Wikimedia
2. Olivia Rodrigo
After recently winning the Catalyst for Change award at the 2025 Planned Parenthood Spring Gala, Rodrigo has become an even more prevalent figure for women to look up to. Her fight for justice focusses on championing rights for young women, setting up the Fund 4 Good organisation alongside her GUTS world tour. For America, Canada and Europe, Rodrigo used a portion of the ticket sale proceeds to go towards the charity. She championed for women to have access to appropriate reproductive care, despite where they live; women’s shelters and WAVE, an organisation dedicated to ensuring women and children live free from violence. Rodrigo is one of the many celebrities who have objected President Trump’s administration, commenting on an official government Instagram which used her song ‘all-american bitch’ as the soundtrack to encourage immigrants to leave the USA.
3. Sam Fender
Though Sam Fender doesn’t deem himself to be someone who can change the world, he certainly has a way of writing powerful songs to delve into deep societal issues. Over the summer, Fender headlined Syd for Solen festival in Denmark, and for his final song, he invited activist Great Thunberg and some members from the Green Youth Movement onto stage, where the activists chanted for Palestine.
Sam Fender, Credit: Raph, Wikimedia
Sam Fender, Credit: Raph, Wikimedia
Sam Fender, Credit: Richard Nicholson, Wikimedia
Sam Fender, Credit: Richard Nicholson, Wikimedia
Fender’s most streamed song, ‘Hypersonic Missiles’, which has accumulated over 183 million streams since its release in 2019, references Gaza being under military conflict: ‘kids in Gaza are bombed and I’m out of it’. These lyrics are even more meaningful now considering the ongoing Gaza-Israel war. Fender has also used his fame to drive the support of independent, grassroot venues. In November, he donated his Mercury Prize winnings of £25,000 to the Music Venue Trust, stating in his speech he wouldn’t be accepting the prize without the gigs he played at these venues.
4. Declan McKenna
Declan McKenna believes young people are the force for the future, their voices being the most important aspect of that. He doesn’t see his music to be driven by politics; it’s pop music that drives his force, though he doesn’t stray from speaking up. Over the summer, McKenna performed at a charity concert for the MIND charity during national mental health week. The phone-free concert took place in Stirling, tickets costing just £12.20, the cost of one help call to the charity. 30% of the ticket sales went directly towards the charity.
Declan McKenna, Credit: Mike Pennington, Wikimedia
Declan McKenna, Credit: Mike Pennington, Wikimedia
Declan McKenna, Credit: media by Stars from Underground
Declan McKenna, Credit: media by Stars from Underground
His first single ‘Brazil’ went viral, having 883 million streams and openly discusses the corruption of the Brazilian Government for hosting the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Other singles including ‘Listen to your friends’ and ‘British Bombs’ don’t stray away from themes of politics and wider societal issues.
5. Chappell Roan
Within the past month, Chappell Roan has launched the ‘Midwest Princess Project’ to uplift trans youth and LQBTQ+ communities. An amazing £300,000 was raised from the ticket sales from her recent US pop up shows opening the charity. At her first Grammy’s appearance in February, Chappell Roan made her winning speech count, calling out record companies for not appropriately looking after their artists. When she was dropped from her label in 2020, she was left with no money and no valued work experience, getting a job was practically impossible.
Chappell Roan, Credit: Raph, Wikimedia
Chappell Roan, Credit: Raph, Wikimedia
She is not afraid to speak her mind, reminding her fans and followers on Instagram to leave her in peace when she’s just dressed as Kayleigh Rose Amstutz.
Ticket touting to be banned in the UK: how will this affect fans buying tickets?
Buying event tickets is harder now than ever before, with dynamic pricing, impossible presale codes and inflated resale prices, fans are becoming more and more exposed to ticket touters as an easy way to see their favourite artists. Ticket touters are more active than they’ve ever been, with concert ticket prices rising over 280% in two decades. Musicians are calling on the government to honour their initial plans from their manifesto and introduce new consumer protection laws. Artists such as Dua Lipa, Coldplay and The Cure are just a few of the names among the group who are pushing for positive change.
What are ticket touters?
In recent years, fans have seen a huge increase in the reselling of tickets at inflated prices. The scale in which reselling has increased has made it almost impossible for fans to not be scammed as they purchase tickets.
Ticker touters buy the tickets in bulk, then resell them through online bots, making a huge profit.
This has impacted the live events industry massively. The government aims to cap the sale of tickets at 30%, but artists are pushing for them to be kept at the initial price. These new laws would make ticket touting illegal and improve access and affordability to true fans.
What are the new rules?
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) have announced the new rules, aiming to have a new, better functioning ticket resale market.
They plan to implement the following:
- Ticket resale above face value will be illegal
- Service fees charged by resale platforms will be capped, preventing the price limit being undermined
- Resale platforms will have a legal duty to monitor and enforce compliance with the price cap
- Individuals will be banned from reselling more tickets than they were entitled to buy in the initial ticket sale
These new regulations could save fans around £112 million annually, the individual ticket price being reduced by £37. If this follows through, it will create a huge positive change for the culture and arts industry.
“For far too long, this money has literally been extracted from the UK’s live music sector, and deposited into the pockets of law-breaking touts and the offshore resale platforms they operate from. It’s why today’s announcement is so significant, and why it is so strongly supported by the Featured Artists Coalition. We believe that a price cap is the only way to curb the excesses and exploitation of the secondary ticketing market.”
How have big artists responded?
Dua Lipa, Coldplay, Sam Fender, and The Cure are just a few of the huge names who have called on Sir Kier Starmer to uphold his election promise. Over 40 musicians have signed the open letter commenting on how they want change for their fans.
Throughout her Australian tour, Olivia Dean called out Ticketmaster, Live Nation and AEG pushing for live music to be more accessible and affordable. Despite being a newly emerging artist and charting for the first time this year, she has used her platform for good. She has ensured that AXS and Ticketmaster have capped the reselling of her ‘The Art of Loving’ tour for the rest of her North American tour. As well as this in Australia, anyone who brought a ticket for an extortionate resale price will get a partial refund from Ticketmaster, meaning they are not paying any more than face value. She has continued to advocate for the same system to be put in place in the UK.
Dua Lipa, Credit: Elizabeth Miranda, BBC Media Center
Dua Lipa, Credit: Elizabeth Miranda, BBC Media Center
Coldplay, Credit: Anna Lee, BBC Media Center
Coldplay, Credit: Anna Lee, BBC Media Center
Olivia Dean, Credit: Raph, Wikimedia
Olivia Dean, Credit: Raph, Wikimedia
Credit: lesslemon, Adobe Stock
Credit: lesslemon, Adobe Stock
Oasis, Credit: InkDrop, Adobe Stock
Oasis, Credit: InkDrop, Adobe Stock
How have resale companies responded?
Reselling platform Twickets, which started out on twitter before creating a full trading platform in 2015, has always intended to create a secure environment for reselling and swapping.
Founder, Richard Davies approves of the proposed rules, describing them as "A landmark moment for consumer protection in live entertainment."
However, Viagogo argue that proposed laws like these leave more room for fraud, as the capped prices push fans towards other, unregulated sites, despite Viagogo’s own unlawful practices.
Studies from the UK Competition and Markets Authority found that Ticketmaster and Live Nation could’ve breached consumer laws by selling Oasis tickets at almost 2.5 times the standard price.
