Live Music Industry Hit Hard by Coronavirus: Our New Service Monitors the Impact
Music festivals are increasingly among those affected by Covid-19. To help everyone stay on top of things, we’ve created Sickfestivals.com, where anyone can easily track which festivals have been canceled, which ones postponed, and what that means for the industry.
It started as a local outbreak, but was soon felt as global unease. The music industry wasn’t exempt in dealing with the aftermath of the pandemic prevention measures. If you were wondering just how fast the situation changed, simply ask our colleague DJ UMEK, who experienced the switch in a matter of hours: “I played on the Resistance stage at Ultra in Melbourne and Sydney, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. When I landed back home and turned my phone back on, most of my upcoming gigs had already disappeared from my calendar. That was when I realized how serious this outbreak had become.”
Because things got so serious so fast, we quickly put together Sickfestivals.com. As it’s up to all of us to do whatever we can to manage the damage, we’ve created a comprehensive list of festivals that have been officially canceled or postponed. Sourced from around 5000 festivals in our Viberate database, the list is reliably updated daily with those affected, and will be upgraded further with other relevant stats.
With our current version, visitors can sort the festivals alphabetically, according to their online popularity, or according to the public reaction to the regretful news, expressed by the “Saddy McSadface” emoji. We’re not making light of the situation — we hope these public “tears of support” will show the hard-working organizers that the world appreciates their concerns.
Why did we do it?
All these cancellations and rearranged dates put unimaginable economic and psychological strain on not only the performing artists, event organizers, and the teams involved, but also on anyone with flights, hotels, and festival tickets already booked and paid for months in advance. Sure, we’re mostly home-bound these days, but that doesn’t mean we should waste hours searching for the latest info in order to get our bookings refunded in time.
Moreover, with a comprehensive list, it’ll be easier to monitor just how huge the impact on the industry will be.
What do the cancellations mean for the industry?
The anticipated fallout goes far beyond worrying whether we’ll be allowed to party at the seaside this summer or not. As the production costs of a mega-sized festival easily exceed $100M, we’re talking billions of dollars out the window.
Here’s what we know so far:
- Over 300 music festivals have already been affected (for updated numbers, check Sickfestivals), 48 of them in the US alone.
- At least 1.3M people will be unable to attend their favorite festival. We’re talking visitors to the 20 most popular music festivals on our platform, so we expect the final number to be much, much higher.
- At least $5.5B in total revenue is expected be lost by all festival stakeholders. By that we mean the aggregated economic effect on festival organizers, vendors, and the teams involved. This calculation was made at the time of writing, so it is expected to increase as things develop.
The situation seems dire, to say the least. The good news is: the music industry is coping and adapting as always. Thanks to their always-hectic schedules, festival professionals are quick to think on their feet and react, and artists who’ve lost their upcoming gigs are creatively turning to online services to keep in touch with their fans, which now seems more valuable than ever.
To try and soften the impact of this situation, Viberate is already implementing new solutions for industry professionals out there, and we’ll update you on them as soon as possible. Together, we can come out stronger.
Stay tuned, but most of all — stay safe and stay home.
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