Music Booking Agency View: Helping Local Musicians During Coronavirus

For a music booking agency, the world has changed.  Remember live music? When people packed themselves into crowded venues, bars, and arenas to sing and dance to their favorite artists? It all seems so far away now.

For the moment, we sit in our homes for the foreseeable future, glued to our screens watching musicians live stream concerts from their living rooms. COVID-19 is spreading at a rapid rate. To slow down the spread of the virus, we all have to do our part and stay home. The coronavirus has taken away the livelihoods of many people.

One of the various livelihoods being affected are those of the music industry, including a music booking agency like TSE. With the cancellation of various music events and the closure of bars and restaurants, artists and industry workers are being severely impacted.

While everyone follows the CDC guidelines of washing their hands and minimizing contact with others, here’s this music booking agency’s view on how to support local musicians from the comfort of your own home.

1. Check on your friends in the industry!

                Times are tough. The most important thing on this list is the most simple: ask your music industry friends if they are okay. Their careers have suddenly ground to a halt and they have no idea when they will be able to work again. Check on the tour managers, festival organizers, booking agents, stagehands, venue owners, tour photographers, sound engineers, and light technicians. They need your emotional support just as much, maybe even more, as your financial support.

2. Up your music streaming.

Music can be therapeutic in times of stress or sadness. Dancing around your living room to your favorite artist and listening to those artists you love on repeat can boost your endorphins. If you want to support local artists without breaking the bank, just keep doing what you’ve been doing: listening to music. Though streaming services like Apple Music and Spotify, don’t pay their artist huge amounts for streams, the pennies they earn do add up and can be of big help to your favorite local musician. A great tip to up the music streams is to play their music while you sleep. An easy way to give an artist eight or more hours of play, and you can wake up knowing you’ve done a good deed.

3. Buy their Music and Merchandise

                Many artists use sites like Gumroad and Bandcamp to sell digital versions of their music, as well as CDs, records, posters and, clothing items. For Bandcamp, the site has a daily payout and 80-85% of the money goes to the buyer while only 10-15% goes to payment processor fees and Bandcamp’s revenue share. Supporting artists through this avenue is more lucrative and instant than using a streaming service. Buying merchandise is a great way to support not only the artist but also the venues and promoters as well.  Buyer beware: Due to the global pandemic, 75% if the U.S. supply chain has been disrupted so actually receiving your merch may be difficult.

4. Watch Livestreams

With orders in place to stay home, we are all craving human interaction. Let the local artists know you’re there for them by showing up for their live-streamed concerts just like you would show up for a physical one. Many artists, big and small, are turning to Twitch, YouTube, and Facebook to Livestream their music and feel closer to their fans. A non-profit organization called Fight for the Future has even created Stay At Home Fest, a website with an editable calendar for online music events. To make the experience more lifelike, tip the musicians just like you would drop a few dollars in the bucket at a show, via Cash App, Venmo or PayPal. We live in a digital world and the ability to stream from any device wherever you are is definitely one of the perks.

5. Donate to Emergency Funds for Music Industry

Humans have a way of taking hardships and turning it into inspiration— which is exactly what many organizations are doing around the world for musicians that are struggling during the COVID-19 outbreak.  This music booking agency applauds the work of organizations like Help Musicians have established the Coronavirus Financial Hardship Fund to help musicians with sudden financial pressures. The Recording Academy® MusiCares organization created a COVID19 Relief Fund to help people in the music community. Spotify has made donating to these organizations easy, with the Spotify COVID-19 Music Relief project. Not only are they donating to the organizations on these lists already, but they will be matching every donation made up to a collective total of $10 million. The full list of organizations participating in the project appears on the first page of the Spotify website.

This Music Booking Agency is Looking Forward to the Future!

Lastly, a message for the people in the industry: Things may feel uncertain and frightening right now. Not knowing when you’ll be able to go to concerts and festivals again, industry workers not knowing where their next paycheck is coming from, fear of catching this deadly virus. It can all feel extremely overwhelming. But keep in mind that this won’t last forever. Book a band and your next show for the fall and beyond.  Buy those festival tickets. Write new music. Work on your craft. Use this time to do what you do best: create.

TSE is one music booking agency that is ready and willing to help get bands and artists booked for events that will take place once this pandemic subsides. Live music will rule again! We can all do our part to make that happen.

Most importantly for now, wash your hands, don’t touch your face, keep social distancing, and stay safe.

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