How we Amplified Awareness during Tinnitus Week 2026

Tinnitus Week 2026 has now wrapped up, and we are excited to share everything that happened throughout the week and show the progress we have made.

From launching our 2026 report: Amplifying Awareness, to Quiet Night Out, our first ever safe listening concert, Tinnitus Week 2026 was action packed, and here we will go through everything that happened.

Turning evidence into action: Tinnitus Week 2026 report launch

We kicked off Tinnitus Week 2026 with the launch of our new report: Amplifying Awareness.

The report was created following extensive surveying carried out over the summer, centering around live music and tinnitus. We gathered insights from a variety of sectors within the music industry, ranging from industry professionals, gigging artists to music fans and festival goers to help us shape an industry wide campaign on hearing health and safer listening within the music industry to ensure live music doesn’t cost people their hearing or wellbeing.

We attended the House of Lords to mark the launch of the report, joined by our sponsors, with talks from Diarmuid Flavin from Neuromod, Jono Heale of ACS and Gordon Harrison from Specsavers.

Report authors Anne Savage and Sonja Jones took the stage to discuss the report, going over findings from the extensive surveying, these findings include:

• Consumers in the UK spend £6.68 billion on live music.
• Hearing damage linked to live music is preventable, but it is placing avoidable pressure on the NHS.
• 92% of fans experience tinnitus after live music events.
• Nearly 1 in 5 people now live with permanent hearing loss.

Following these findings, Tinnitus UK is calling for:

1. For Venues: Make venues safer for staff and audiences by clearly following appropriate hearing safety guidance, and by providing practical toolkits, guidelines, and training for venue operators.
2. For live music professionals: Demand safe working conditions, including appropriate hearing protection, noise monitoring, and training; hearing loss should never be part of the job.
3. For All: Normalise hearing protection at live music. Wearing earplugs should be as routine as wearing seatbelts; driven by public-health campaigns and visible leadership from artists, DJs, and influencers.
4. For Government: Set clear, enforceable standards on sound levels, hearing protection, and training, ensuring they are monitored and enforced to protect workers and audiences alike.

Live Music Hearing Health Pledge

The Live Music Hearing Health Alliance Pledge, led by Tinnitus UK, is designed to change that by creating a shared foundation for action.

It brings together organisations across hearing health, music, public safety and policy around five simple but powerful commitments:

• Work collaboratively for a shared purpose
• Act on robust scientific evidence
• Speak with a coordinated voice to decision-makers
• Prioritise prevention, not just treatment
• Have the people with lived experience of people affected at the heart of what we do

Find out more about the pledge here

Tinnitus UK would like to thank all of the attendees and sponsors for joining us at the House of Lords, and for helping us to raise awareness on hearing safety within the music industry. If you would like to read the report, click below.

Quiet Night Out – Our first safe listening concert

Thank you to everyone who joined us at our first concert, Quiet Night Out. We were joined by a talented line up, including Justin Sullivan of New Model Army, artists from Penguin Cafe, Daisy Chute, Cosmo Pyke, comedian Rob Newman, Kate Ireland, The Mother Wolf Club and Victoria Dell.

The night brought together a mixture of music, comedy, spoken word and connection, all with safe listening at its core. 

Quiet Night Out was a key part in our Tinnitus Week Campaign, showing that living with tinnitus & sound sensitivity shouldn’t effect your personal lives and that people should still be able to attend a live gig without damaging their hearing.

How we created a safe listening concert

We worked closely with the venue’s expert technical team and our event producer to focus on clarity over loudness. We used calibrated monitoring to strictly respect a 90 dB limit over 15 minutes throughout the event, with many parts of the programme well below that threshold which you can read more about. 

Each ticket holder also received a free pair of ACS Custom earplugs, which reduce the volume to ensure safe listening, while keeping the clarity so attendees can enjoy the event at its fullest.  

The venue also had a designated quiet area, for those who needed a break from the sound or needed additional support from our volunteers.

Quiet Night Out was created with those living with tinnitus and sound sensitivity in mind, and our aim was to make people confident to go to live events again, like musician Tim Bricheno, who attended and performed at Quiet Night Out after not being to a live event in 7 years.

“For seven years, I avoided live music entirely. With the right support, I slowly rebuilt my relationship with sound. Carefully. Thoughtfully. Safely. 

This year, for the first time in seven years, I’m going to a live music event again.”

New Free Webinar: A Journey Through Sound

We were joined by Jono Heale from ACS for our newest webinar, A Journey Through Sound.  Jono takes viewers on a clear, engaging journey through:

• What sound actually is – from vibrations in the air to the way our ears and brains interpret them
• Decibels explained – how loud things really are, why that matters, and how even music we love can reach potentially harmful levels
• Noise exposure and legal limits – including how workplace sound regulations relate surprisingly well to gigs, clubs, and rehearsals
• The link between loud environments and tinnitus – and why repeated exposure can increase risk or worsen existing symptoms
• How to protect your ears – from understanding exposure time to choosing appropriate hearing protection
• The Tinnitus Toolkit – a practical resource created to support people living with tinnitus

“People like me don’t just need reassurance. We need real, human support.“

Musician Tim Bricheno on the importance of Tinnitus UK’s support services

The Tinnitus Week 2026 appeal ensures that we can continue providing people who are living with tinnitus with the support and resources they need.

Your donation helps Tinnitus UK provide: 

• A free, confidential helpline for people in crisis
• Local and online support groups, so no one has to face tinnitus alone 
• Training and research for audiologists and professionals  
• Trusted information and guidance, when the waiting lists are long and answers are scarce 

Any donation makes a difference