Blog: live

As we begin 2021 with a vaccine on the near horizon, live venue businesses are holding on with whitening knuckles through the intermediate stricter lockdowns. However, the world has changed much in the year since the first social distancing measures were put in place – and navigating the future will look nothing like a return to the past.

The ‘broken record’ streaming debate that continues to rage on is a natural consequence of the instantaneous collapse of live music revenue following lockdown. As soon as it was clear that live was going to be gone for some time , MIDiA predicted that the artist backlash against streaming royalties would be a natural, unintended consequence .

The almost total cessation of live music has sent shockwaves throughout the wider music industry. Though live companies are clearly at the epicentre, labels and streaming services are the in the blast radius too as the gaping hole left in most artists’ income is causing them to question their other income sources, streaming especially – with both labels and DSPs in the sights.

Forbes has released its annual Celebrity 100, its list of the top earning media stars. The healthy share of music artists hints at the continued ability to build highly successful music careers. The presence of younger, streaming era artists like Drake and the Weeknd goes further, hinting at how streaming can now be the foundation for superstar commercial success.

Amazon today announced ‘Amazon Prime Live Events’, a series of smaller capacity gigs by largely heritage acts made available exclusively to Amazon Prime members in the UK. The first wave of artists include Blondie, Alison Moyet and Texas.