How COVID-19 will change the music industry
COVID-19 and the subsequent quarantine and social distancing orders have spelled trouble for organizations across all business sectors. One of the hardest hit businesses were those in the music entertainment and venue world.
Since social distancing is so important in our current society, large venue concerts and events are inherently poorly affected by this cultural shift. In order to combat this, many artists (specifically DJs), have brought their talent to the internet in the form of live streams on streaming platforms such as Twitch and YouTube. One famous DJ that comes to mind when thinking about these live streams is Martin Garrix. He has live streamed his DJ sets twice during this quarantine clocking in over 2.8 million views on both of the recordings of his streams on YouTube. However, electronic music DJs have been streaming their sessions far before the world was under quarantine.
One DJ that goes by the name of Deadmau5 has been streaming on Twitch for years with over 400,000 subscribers on the platform. Additionally, other artists outside of the electronic music world will and are starting to get into the live streaming performance world of music. The largest scale of this in mainstream media I can think of would be the Global Citizen live broadcast. This event curated by Lady Gaga was a live broadcast of many artists singing to raise money for the World Health Organization.
I believe that going forward, many other music producers and artists will begin to live stream their work as COVID-19 makes it hard for people to safely gather in large groups. The game streaming industry has grown a ridiculous amount in the last couple of years on platforms such as Twitch, YouTube, Mixer and many more. In the next few years I think live music streaming will begin to take off in the same way that gaming has.
Breaking out into the live streaming music world will also be especially important for smaller artists that make most of their money from touring as they will no longer be able to do so. As someone who has explored it in the past, it does not take that much technical knowledge to set up a live stream. Meaning that there is not as much upfront cost as say renting out a venue to perform at. Additionally, a live stream can be done from anywhere and absolutely every aspect can be controlled by its creator.
