\n The BRIT Awards 2026 with Mastercard take place on February 28 in Manchester
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Mastercard is marking 28 years as a BRIT Awards headline sponsor with a new youth initiative, Manchester Legends \u2014 a programme created to help local young people explore careers in music. <\/p>\n
The project follows the company\u2019s first Mic Drops scheme launched last year.<\/p>\n
Working with well\u2011known Manchester artists, the programme highlights the city\u2019s long\u2011standing musical influence. <\/p>\n
DJ Paulette helped kick things off with a surprise set and an honest talk about her career for students at Stretford High School, stressing that the industry offers far more than performing roles.<\/p>\n
The launch comes alongside new Mastercard research showing that many young people struggle to access creative careers. <\/p>\n
The findings point to unclear entry routes, financial barriers and regional inequality.<\/p>\n
Manchester Legends aims to counter some of these challenges by offering in\u2011person sessions throughout February and March, introducing young people to the wide range of jobs behind the scenes \u2014 from engineering and production to photography, design and songwriting.<\/p>\n
The research also shows that a significant number of 14\u201321\u2011year\u2011olds have never been to a live gig, and more than half don\u2019t know where to start when considering a music career. Confidence, cost and lack of guidance were identified as the biggest obstacles.<\/p>\n
Charlie Carrington, SVP of Marketing and Communications at Mastercard, said the programme is designed to give young people \u201creal access to expertise, practical advice and inspiration,\u201d emphasising Manchester\u2019s cultural importance.<\/p>\n
DJ Paulette added that creative careers rarely follow a straight line: \u201cNot every \u2018no\u2019 means stop. Stay curious and keep going.\u201d<\/p>\n
As part of the wider campaign, Mastercard is also supporting local record shops. Between February 23 and March 15, customers using Mastercard at participating stores \u2014 including Piccadilly Records, Eastern Block, Vinyl Revival and Vinyl Exchange \u2014 can enter a draw to win prepaid cards to spend in\u2011store.<\/p>\n
The initiative follows Mastercard\u2019s recent support for Manchester\u2019s small business community, including a pop\u2011up market hosted with Mary Portas last autumn.<\/p>\n
The BRIT Awards 2026 with Mastercard take place on February 28 at Manchester’s Co-op Live Arena.<\/p>\n
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\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.contactmusic.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To mark 28 years sponsoring the BRIT Awards, Mastercard is doing its bit to help young Mancunians into the music business.
By Lizzie Baker
Thursday, February 19, 2026\u00a010:38 AM
By Lizzie Baker
Thursday, February 19, 2026\u00a010:38 AM
The BRIT Awards 2026 with Mastercard take place on February 28 in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2289042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2289041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/New-Mastercard-programme-aims-to-break-barriers-for-young-Mancunians.webp.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2289041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2289041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2289041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2289043,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2289041\/revisions\/2289043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2289042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2289041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2289041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2289041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}