Sheffield's Leadmill manager says they are "so humbled and so grateful" for Arctic Monkeys' raffle

Earlier this month, Arctic Monkeys launched a Crowdfunder in conjunction with Music Venue Trust to try and raise money to help the Sheffield venue and other grassroots music venues in the UK to survive the coronavirus pandemic.

Alex Turner also deicded to contribute his black Fender Stratocaster guitar that he played with at The Leadmill and during their Reading 2006 set for fans to win in a raffle.

The Crowdfunder will still be live until 6pm BST today (25 August) and has already passed its £100,000 target.

Leadmill general manager Rebecca Walker told NME, "I can’t believe we’re over £100,000. That’s an insane amount of money and will go so far to securing not only the bricks and mortar of venues, but also their key members of staff."

Walker added, "We['re] so humbled and so grateful. We couldn’t thank the guys enough for listening to us and allowing us to reach out to them, but also just their generosity. To them, it’s just a guitar but to us it’s a lifeline - it’s a matter of whether a venue can stay open or not."

On how they managed to get Arctic Monkeys on board with the fundraiser, Walker said, "Everyone in Sheffield knows someone who knows someone who knows Arctic Monkeys. You can’t go very far in the city without someone having a story about them. I happen to know someone with a connection to them so we reached out back in April and then their management said, 'We’ve actually been speaking with them and they were asking about you guys to see if you were alright'. It was so great to know that no matter how big they get or where they are in the world, they’re still concerned with the crisis of how venues are doing back home. They were only too happy to help."