Post-COVID-19 and the Music Industry – What we need to do.

I wanted to write this post this morning with a positive message. Right now the world is panic mode with COVID-19 affecting everything and everyone. The music industry is getting extremely hard since it’s all about social gatherings and physical connections with others. Band tours are getting cancelled, venues are temporarily closing. That’s the obvious impacts, but what about the crews at the venues? What about road crews and techs? What stage/lighting/sound rental services? What about recording studios and session musicians. These are the foundations where builders rely their livelihoods on.

I want to be optimistic and want to be hopeful for the near future. We’re on the brink on a complete global recession, and if duration of this virus outbreak is massively extended, we’ll all be in trouble. But in my heart (note – I definitely not a doctor or scientist), I feel like the virus will burn out. Based on other corona style viruses like SARS, MERS, etc. I believe if that happens, things like the stock market will bounce back hard – like in a big way. Lessons will be learned for the future, and hopefully things like this will be avoided in the future.

But, what about the music industry? In the world of performance events – these are slow moving ships? It takes months to plan and book tours, Festivals like SXSW, Treefort, etc… are something you just can’t fire up again after a delay. I’m hoping with all services cancelled, that everyone would be open to try to reschedule quickly to make up for the loses, but it’s difficult. The wave of recovery will be harder in this industry.

What can we all do after COVID-19 to help? Buy gear! Go to live shows! Contribute to Patreon! Purchase music on bandcamp! After the virus incident is over, our jobs are secure again, our health is okay – and we feel normal – we need to inject money. There won’t be a stimulus plan from the gov for this sector, so it’s up to me and you to feed the engine that feeds the artists. We need to pack those venues. We need to support the music eco-system as soon as possible.

Hopefully, I’ll see you on the other side. Hopefully, this will blow over and burn out quickly. For the artists out there. Hang in there. It will get better. For the builders out there – hunker down and weather the storm.