If you think the coronavirus pandemic’s only affected massive festivals like SXSW and Coachella and big-scale tours like Billie Eilish’s and Cher’s, think again. As more metropolitan areas take necessary steps in an effort to contain the virus’s spread, thousands of smaller acts are having their entire year — and, in many cases, their only source of income — completely wiped out. Even in the best-case scenario, the spate of nationwide event postponements and cancellations will likely affect concert bookings until the end of the year, drastically changing the live-music landscape for the rest of 2020.
Over the month and beyond, we’ll be speaking with artists about how the coronavirus has affected their livelihood, as well as what they anticipate the future of the touring industry to be in the near and long term. Here’s what they had to say about the difficult road ahead.
Marisa Dabice, Mannequin Pussy (Philadelphia, PA)
“My fucking tour just got canceled ten minutes ago! Our show with Best Coast in Detroit is the last date (March 13). Everyone is being sweet and kind to each other, and we’re trying to make the best of it that we can, but the news is pretty devastating. We just lost all of our income that we were gonna be living off of for the next six months — somewhere in the ballpark of $80,000, and that’s a modest estimate. We were in a fortunate position in that everything we were doing was setting ourselves up to take the summer to record in the fall. We had the Best Coast tour, a little bit of time off, Coachella, shows with Idles, more Coachella, and then touring home — but all of that is going to be postponed now. Livestreaming shows feels really fucking lame to me. I don’t want to do a performance for a computer. Part of being a punk band is living off the energy of a live crowd. It’s a symbiotic relationship. You can’t replicate that. Is it something we’d try? Maybe, but it doesn’t seem artistically appealing.”
“Everyone I know is on edge. I think everyone’s still processing it. This isn’t just affecting bands, too — it’s industrywide. There are so many people involved in live performances, and it’s affecting all of them. A lot of these decisions that are happening are out of our hands. We have to put our head down and follow orders. It wipes out an entire source of revenue for many artists. There’s no safe area where you’re allowed to exist outside of this, which is what’s so unique about this situation. Usually when something like this happens, it mostly affects the arena acts, but now it affects the small-font acts too. But the rooms have been packed, and the audiences have been so happy to be there up to this point. They’ve been showing up to party because it’s the last show they’re gonna be going to for a long time.”
Yumi Zouma (Christchurch, New Zealand)
Josh Burgess: “Waking up yesterday morning, there were a lot more shows then than there are now. What’s really weird for us is that the developments aren’t taking place over a couple of days — it’s every hour. Our booking agent keeps calling us up and saying, ‘Well, there goes another gig.’ The promoters and the venues are as in the dark as anyone else, too.”
Christie Simpson: “A lot of venues have been like, ‘It’s going ahead, it’s fine,’ and then we get an update saying, ‘Never mind, we’re closing.’”
Charlie Ryder: “I’ve never been so invested in local-government tweets.”
Burgess: “We’ve been talking about holing up in my apartment and livestreaming shows. We have a new album just out, too, and we have a bunch of dates booked in September that now seem like a bad idea. Who knows what’s gonna happen in September? We’re so in-the-moment right now that thinking ahead is hard. But every show in our tour was sold out, and we were really planning to make a step up.”
Simpson: “This felt like a big moment for us, the first stepping stone in a massive year for us. We’ve invested a lot of time and engaged so many other people in this new album. But we’re lucky to have a digital following, especially when the world is so connected. A lot of people have reached out to us to say that our music has been very soothing over the last several days.”
Emma Kupa, Mammoth Penguins (Cambridgeshire, U.K.)
“We were due to fly to America on Tuesday for SXSW. We had a mentorship appointment booked with one of the industry members, and we were gonna do some day parties as well. We found out the festival had been canceled, and we made the decision as a band to not go. All that hard work and anticipation for nothing. We’d even done some gigs to raise money for it that pretty much covered the flights, which I’m not sure we’re gonna get the money back from. We’ve probably lost between £1,000–2000 from this. That money could’ve paid for a good amount of recording. I’ve just confirmed a few gigs in September, but I’m not gonna spend a lot of money on gigs until we know the situation better.”
“I have incident and public-liability insurance, and we got travel insurance as well, but because the U.S. or the U.K. aren’t telling us not to travel right now, they can’t pay out, so I’m hoping that over the weekend either government will decide to tell us not to travel. My bandmates are really disappointed, and there’s no guarantee that [SXSW] will happen next year or that we’ll even be able to go, because it’s so much work to get there and I’m not sure I can do it again. It could be an incredibly quiet year for bands.”
Goldroom (Los Angeles, CA)
“I have a tour confirmed in Mexico for the end of April/early May and can’t decide whether to announce it or not. I’m currently finishing up plans for a summer tour and wrestling with when and if to announce that as well. It’s clear that larger shows now through the end of April should all be canceled, but the uncertainty around the timetable after that is really causing huge headaches. Not only is it affecting travel planning, flights, and hotels but also whether or not to be spending ad money to promote the shows. The uncertainty is killing stuff that’s booked for the late spring and summer.”
Nadia Reid (Port Chalmers, New Zealand)
“I just woke up to a decision. A few of our other New Zealand friends were heading to Austin and decided not to, and now we’ve made the decision too. Everything feels like it’s up in the air — I have a show in New York, an extensive U.K. and European tour. I’ve never experienced anything like this before, and it’s heartbreaking, because there are so many implications for everybody and a domino effect. It’s also hard to know what’s reality and what’s just hype in the media. If the U.K. tour gets canceled, that’s a huge chunk of my year gone. I’ve been on the phone with American Airlines and I’m not sure we can get refunded for our U.S. flights, so that’s thousands of dollars in the air. The money stuff is a real bummer, but this is a real threat healthwise, too.”
“We played in Wellington last night to 600 people, and I felt a strange energy in the room. It’s good for people to be together in these uncertain times — providing that it’s okay healthwise. Coming together during uncertainty is helpful for people. I’ve been on the phone a lot with musician friends here, and we’re all saying that we don’t know what the right thing to do is. It’s a really difficult thing to cancel shows. We’re freaked out, and we just want to do the right thing for everybody.”
Sarah Lipstate, Noveller (Los Angeles, CA)
“Unfortunately, my tour in France with Iggy Pop in April has been rescheduled for September. Solo performances for my project Noveller are also being postponed or canceled altogether. When the Iggy tour initially came about, I had to back out of doing a live score for a theater production in Houston. With the tour postponed, it’s looking pretty bleak in terms of opportunities to recoup the loss. It’s a devastating blow, financially. Initially, my U.S. booking agent tried to fill in my schedule with Noveller dates and got me a great offer for a gig, but now that’s being postponed or canceled. I’ve been told that current insurance coverage doesn’t include viral pandemics, so no compensation is to be expected.”
“It’s clear that musicians aren’t going to be able to rely on live performances to make money until this pandemic is under control. I started reaching out to gear companies that I work with and asked them to keep me in mind for marketing campaign opportunities. A lot of the time, I get paid in gear for the promo videos I do. I’ve already had to start selling some of the more valuable pedals from my personal collection to cover living expenses. I’m trying to reestablish communication with filmmakers who’d previously reached out to me about scoring their projects. It’s a hustle. Everyone I’ve spoken to is anxious and frustrated. Some friends with postponed tours are lucky enough to be getting compensated by their bands. Most of us are definitely freaking out about the sudden loss of income and the uncertainty that lies ahead.”