I guess the
writing around Corona is too much. And yes, I wrote around it when SXSW closed.
The truth is that no one really knows what is going to happen. And it might not
be as bad as you think.
There will
be like 9/11 a before and after Corona. 9/11 affected a lot of security and
border issues, Corona will directly affect the music industry like nothing really
before it has. Record labels, studios, and publishers will be fine. Here it is
the live industry that will get the big hit. The live sector is still the biggest
part of the music industry over fifty percent in most parts of the world. Also,
this sector hasn’t had so many problems before. Just that we closed smaller gig
places. That hasn’t affected the big companies, Corona has just affected them
big time.
The government
says they will help companies with different things. Even with that said the hotels,
theme parks, and other things are huge giants even compare to the biggest
booking agency. You must calculate them as small companies and they will have
the hardest time. We can see a lot of structures in the live industry going to
change even with government involvement.
Right now,
it’s very hard to predict who everything will unfold. It depends if this state
of emergency is on its peak and how long it will be going. The longer the
bigger effects. Just this week the companies started to squirm a bit and that is
just a week. We don’t know if these companies are living on the edge and a
break in the income is breaking them after a week or do, they have a stash of
cash to survive in six months?
These are the
guesses that I think might actually happen.
First, don’t
look at it as a disaster. Music will not die. In Italy, they sing from the
balconies. What can change is the structure. When structures change opportunities
will arise. Look at this as a giant opportunity. Go with the flow.
The big live company’s
power might be over. Their big
arenas might shutdown and contracts for these might be up in the air since they
might change hands of ownership if they can’t come back after the crisis. One
scenario is also that their staff that they need to fire on the big concert
arenas might find new work and not coming back which could make them lose contracts.
Here are opportunities when it goes back to grab things if you want to move
into that section. One of those things could be that people that are laid off
start new companies that have an inbuilt knowledge to take over the arenas.
The live
industry will lose people because they must minimize their structure. That will
free a lot of new people that are quite trained that will do their own thing
and hopefully that will divide the market into smaller sections. Witch is a
good thing for musicians and artists. Maybe bar personal that were working
there now sees an opportunity to open their own establishment when the crises
will open up for new renting contracts and a structure of smaller places in the
beginning.
People will
change their habits. Suddenly they will consume other things. During this time,
they might find new tv-series to watch and other ways to communicate that will
be holding on. These will be new channels to put your music in. Maybe smaller establishments
will be cooler because people want to have a good time but closer to home. We
might see a new wave of clubs to perform at?
Smaller venues
will come back first. People might think this is charming and start going there
instead of the mass things. New things will arrive. Old festivals and institutions
might go bust and in that new things will rise and that is always a new opportunity.
The only
thing we can predict is that it will be changes. A before and after the Corona
outbreak for sure.
For me it’s
business as usual. Instead of the meetings and live things around the world I
got my opportunity to really start the radio station Cashbox Radio in full
force this week. Everything bad has something good with it. It's the end of the world as we know it, not the end of the world.
