Blog: coronavirus impact

The news is everywhere: concerts are back. Coachella heralded the return of a roaring festival season, hundreds of acts are back on the road, and Live Nation says it is expecting a record year. But other headlines paint a different picture: Little Simz canceled her tour because it was not financially viable for her as an independent artist, reporters are calling out many venues for taking a 25% cut of merch sales, artists everywhere are struggling with the financial — not just health — risk of contracting coronavirus on tour, live music revenue has not yet bounced back , and tweets like these are going viral.

As the coronavirus lockdowns have forced venues to close and people indoors, artists have been unevenly impacted across the music industry. While many bigger studios were forced to cease operations, and some artists unable to release or record music – often relying on previous recordings they could still send to post-production – smaller independent artists took advantage of being home-bound.