Robert Smith to receive Fan Champion Award at Artist & Manager Awards 2026

The Cure frontman Robert Smith will receive the Fan Champion Award at the Artist & Manager Awards 2026, organised by the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC) and the Music Managers Forum (MMF), with the ceremony set for 18 November at the Bloomsbury Big Top in London. The award goes to artists who stand up for their audience, and in Smith's case it recognises his fight against unfair ticketing practices, according to OndaRock.

In 2023 the musician criticised Ticketmaster over extra fees that sometimes exceeded the face value of tickets. He had more than 7,000 tickets listed on resale sites cancelled and secured some refunds for buyers hit by the charges. Smith has also opposed dynamic pricing, which shifts prices with demand, calling it a "scam" driven by greed, and more recently backed the FanFair Alliance campaign urging the UK government to crack down on touts and cap resale prices.

New Zealand singer-songwriter and producer Jordan Rakei will receive the Artists' Voice Award at the same event. FAC chief executive David Martin said both artists used their profile "for the common good". Other honourees include Portishead, Jamie Cullum with Rockstar Management and Raw Power Management, and The Quietus, which gets the Entrepreneur Award.

Robert Smith, born in Blackpool in 1959, is an English singer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter rooted in alternative rock, gothic rock and post-punk. The award follows a summer of shows with The Cure across the UK and Europe, including Isle Of Wight Festival and Open'er Festival, where Eden Gallup stood in for his father Simon on bass at some dates.