Musician Alex Lahey was about to head off on a European tour in early March when lockdowns began around the world.
That tour was cancelled. Then a US tour was called off, and an Australian one. Suddenly, the 27-year-old ARIA-nominated Melburnian was looking at no work until November.
"That's really heartbreaking," she told the ABC.
"We talk about the finances but also just emotionally."
Money from shows is the bulk of her income as an independent artist, and that's also true for the various people — booking agents, publicists, sound engineers — who help make her shows, and shows of artists like her, happen.
"The flow-on effect for me losing my work as a touring artist is also felt by a number of other people who work alongside me and with me," she said.
A time to experiment to find audiences and income
In the music business, which is full of precarious, short-term contract and casual work, the financial effects of COVID-19 have been immense.
For artists, some of whom will be ineligible for JobKeeper payments, this has meant scrambling to find ways to perform online and asking their fans to donate.
So far, the most obvious method has been to use the platforms that first come to mind: Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.
Isol-Aid, a weekly Instagram festival featuring musicians performing largely from home, benefiting charity Support Act, began shortly after lockdown restrictions were put in place. Individual artists have also been using Facebook Live.
But these platforms are not set up for ticketing, making donations the norm. Giving away artistic performances free, even for a limited time, also risks devaluing that work over the long-term.
Musicians, venues and emerging platforms are now looking at ways to professionalise — and monetise — the live-stream performance, recognising social-distancing measures may make live music one of the last aspects of pre-COVID life to return.
But what will that look like for fans, and will they pay for a performance that cannot emulate the sweaty, noisy atmosphere of a gig?
How to make the digital concert pay
Various models are emerging, involving government funding, donations, ticket sales or a mix of all three.
Over the past month, the Victorian Government and the Mushroom Group have collaborated on State of Music, a slick production with a host and professionally shot performances.
The shows have so far attracted about 500,000 views across Facebook and YouTube. The artists are paid a performance fee and the series is funded by the Victorian Government.
Similarly, the Victorian Government is involved in Delivered Live. It features both musicians and comedians — most recently, Dave Faulkner, Mo'Ju and Zoe Coombs Marr, among others — and is free to watch, though viewers can donate to the artists.
Digital agency ED. has been working on a new platform called At Yours, set to launch soon, that will let artists sell ticketed access to live streams.
"We just thought it'd be an opportunity to continue treating the arts as a business and not as a charity case," ED.'s Hew Sandison said.
Ultimately, he said, time would tell how much fans were willing to engage with a live-streamed performance.
"When money comes into the question, sure, some people might be more reluctant to tune in and have a good time watching their favourite musicians perform live," he said.
But he was confident there would be demand and that fans were hungry to support their favourite acts.
Naomi Price, who is working on The IsoLate Late Show, a live-streamed variety show that raises money for the Actors and Entertainers Benevolent Fund, said the philanthropic model was not sustainable given they were working with 25 artists every week.
Ms Price is looking at a number of options, including trying to partner with broadcast television networks or approaching sponsors.
"I think we're in a good position because we are creative minds and we will think creatively about how to finance this project moving forward."
Empty bar transitions to live-streamed gigs
Sydney venue MoshPit, which has a capacity of 100, had been sitting idle after restrictions on gatherings came down.
So while its employees collected JobKeeper and a negotiation with the landlord kept rent in check, the owners hired a video crew to record bands playing in the bar and beamed the vision into fans' living rooms.
"On a busy night, we'd be turning people away at the door," owner Pat Jones said of the time before lockdown.
For a recent live-streamed gig, they came close to their in-venue capacity.
"People are used to coming into the MoshPit for free to see a show, obviously paying for drinks. So, it does take a bit of adjustment" to ask them to pay for entry," he said.
Once someone buys a ticket, sold for $10 via a website called Sticky Tickets, they are emailed a URL for the live stream, which is hosted on Vimeo.
After the ticketing fee, the money is split evenly between the venue, the artist and the production crew.
The benefits of a live-streaming culture going forward
Something that might affect demand for paid live streams — that is, whether audiences will part with their cash — is the quality of the experience.
"I fear that we're kind of approaching a fatigue level of the same quality of live stream, which is the live stream that doesn't cost any money to make," Alex Lahey said.
"It's going to be interesting to see how open audiences are to fronting money in order to ensure that artists can cover the expenses needed to provide a higher level of performance in that format."
On the At Yours platform, it will be up to the individual artist to find somewhere to play, set their gear up and make it sound good.
After deductions for licence and booking fees, and for the platform itself, the money is released to the artist to distribute how they see fit.
The music industry has form when it comes to combating existential crises.
In the past few years, the take-up of paid streaming though platforms like Spotify and Apple Music has started to mend some of the financial damage that digital piracy wrought in the early 2000s.
Provided artists can make the emerging infrastructure for live streams work for them — and importantly, for their fans — it could be an additional means of revenue once life returns to normal.
Artists may be able to find a second tier of paying customers, including people who could not make it to a venue for health or geographical reasons.
"There's potential in live streaming to hugely increase income from a live show," Nick O'Byrne, who manages Courtney Barnett, told a recent industry panel.
"We're forced into this position now, but that will be a huge positive to come out of this."
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMibmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIwLTA1LTMwL2Nvcm9uYXZpcnVzLXJlc3RyaWN0aW9ucy13b3VsZC15b3UtcGF5LWZvci1hLWdpZy1vbi15b3VyLXBob25lLzEyMjcyNjE00gEnaHR0cHM6Ly9hbXAuYWJjLm5ldC5hdS9hcnRpY2xlLzEyMjcyNjE0?oc=5
2020-05-30 10:00:47Z
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