In consideration of the whole point of Session 11, discuss how a musician can succeed in Covid times. What adaptations can they implement? What specific challenges do they face? Incorporate specific examples.
The Cyber PR article had a good point about charging an actual price for online concerts instead of asking for donations. There was a music business seminar I attended in 2018 that was about properly charging for your services, and it did warn a bit about the dangers for playing for free, or for the “exposure” (and by the gods do I hate that word). Essentially, you are lowering the value of pay for the rest of the musicians (after all, why pay someone when the next person might be willing to play for the experience? They might not be as good, but they’re will to play for free. You are also not allowing yourself to spend your time wisely, as music is a hard business, and you can’t always afford to be playing for the exposure.
That being said, you do have to generate a name for yourself, one that people will be happy enough to pay for. During Covid, I think this is especially difficult because it’s online, and in my personal experience live music online isn’t as good; be that because of equipment, or lack of the in-person experience, ect. I don’t listen to live online music, but some of my favourite artists have done the transition to online, and they implemented some new ways to keep revenue (although it is obviously not as high as it was before). You still buy tickets, though they do cost a significant amount less. They also allow for a limited-time Video On Demand with the purchase of a $5+ on original ticket, which gives you the option to re-watch the concert repeatedly for 90 days.
I also like to think about the other expenses not created by concert location, travel, physical printing of tickets, and other things. The one online concert I did attend, the stage seemed to be much smaller, which led m to think that they might have just had the concert in a hall owned by the artist entertainment company (instead of renting out an off-site hall).
(sorry I don’t have much to say for unsigned artists. I’m not interested in performance, so I’ve never really paid attention to all the struggles they have to go through (which is really my bad)).
