Below I share my views, observations, opinions and humble recommendations for my personal take on what the current global pandemic means to the entertainers and musicians of the world. 

1. What are the struggles we are facing? Going from performing to a live audience to.. no audience? 
2. What does this also entail for you the consumer? The mere excitement and joy from watching your favourite DJ spin a live set. 
3. How can a musician make money beyond the conventional platforms? I offer here some alternative ideas. (Hint: Spotify and iTunes don’t bring home the bread!) 
4. How can creatives think beyond themselves and collaborate? An opportunity for making some wonderful global collaborations, perhaps? 

Final reflection: beyond this, what are we being taught?

 

“It’s been changing all along through trial and error, only now its through necessity!” 

-My Friend Max Marshall (Magician) 

The recent outbreak has been a wake up call for me, I don’t know about you, but I sure do feel different about the world we are living in. Something tells me things are bound to change going forward and so I figured I would write and share my observations with you here and perhaps based on that information, try to predict what this all means for the entertainer going forward. I wasn’t here in the 20s, but I’m sure a lot changed back then with the outbreak of the Spanish flu. Years from now, humans will surely go back to preferable ways of engaging, interacting, and consuming entertainment but right now, things are changing around us; consumer habits are being forced to change and that can only mean the world as we know it is shifting. We all need to prepare ourselves for the new reality. Re-invent is the word, yes. 

Kyte is a performer and she, like many, has been directly affected by this. Thirteen years of performing have shown her the importance of audience presence and feedback; but right now, and for an indefinite amount of time she has neither. I never went to school for theatre, but it doesn’t take a genius to know that the audience is the true heartbeat of a show. Why else do we entertain? Who would we entertain? Lucille (Awen Music) in France, was going on tour to promote her new EP when all this brought her life to a halt. She said to me in a write up, “all our other projects are stopped for now. I was also supposed to perform for the first time on the African continent in September, but I’m starting to think it might not happen either.” These are two or more stories around the world of musicians, performers and entertainers affected by the pandemic. Think of Black Coffee for example, who cancelled his March 6th show in Hong Kong for fears of the virus, hoping to go on to the rest of Europe. Think of TV shows with sets, The Lion King production on Asian Tour, Once on This Island, Sister Act and many others! 

All this in mind, I looked around the net for other people discussing this issue progressively to see if where I thought the world is going was where it really is headed and for the most part, I was right. For example, I was certain that the entertainment consumption habits of the public would shift; now there’s an article somewhere with research showing economic reasons why this will happen. Let’s discuss this later. Another is that, textbook knowledge might become redundant in this crisis and beyond. What you learnt in school about entertainment, and the audience, may no longer apply going forward. (And it certainly isn’t applicable right now!) We’ve been headed this way since Tim Bernes-Lee invented the internet in 1990. The Napster era was the recording artist’s first wave of change since the introduction of Copyright Law in 1909 (for American artists at least). Speaking of the recording industry, Lucille is a part of this too. 

The current state of the recording industry is a reflection on the rest of the entertainment world actually. Already, companies have recorded major losses in ticket sales as the concert business comes to a standstill. For those who may not know, if a concert or tour is cancelled its not just the guy singing on stage that’s affected. In 2016 for example, Beyoncé performed in England. It took 7 Boeing 747 air freighters and a fleet of more than 70 trucks to get her stage set and other gear to the venues and that doesn’t include the backstage staff, musicians, performers or Beyoncé herself. So imagine that tour got cancelled. We’d be talking a loss of jobs for truck drivers, flight captains, engineers, construction and installation teams, backstage staff, front of house performers and ushers; I’m estimating thousands of personnel - one project.  Besides the concert business being affected, the NBA has suspended the rest of their season games. UEFA’s 2020 games are still scheduled to go ahead as planned but with a few significant changes, now that the governments will most likely be limiting large group gatherings. That leads to a short discussion on theme parks- Disney is closed. Has Disney ever been closed, for this long at a time? 

At the moment, any space that calls for large groups to gather, is shut or low on business. The Italian government for example, ordered the closure of theatres, cinemas and restaurants. This is partly the case in Hong Kong, with Disneyland here being shut since late January and most recently a ban on the sale of alcohol in all restaurants and clubs and worse off, a ban on all tourist entries for two weeks at least - one of Hong Kong’s main source of income. This means between then and now, maybe going forward, companies that have depended on large groups of people visiting their event spaces, will have to redirect their marketing to something else. Touring, theme park visits, cinemas, clubbing, theatres - this may not be the best way to make money at the moment or for a while to come as companies will lower spending on media strategies and advertising targeted at consumers outside their homes. Disney still wins; Disney +. Apple TV, Netflix and Amazon video are there somewhere too. And that points us in the direction I want to talk more about - digital entertainment consumption. 

There’s an increase in online media consumption and the NPR website has tried to see into the future on this and discuss what opportunities the music business has at the moment and going forward. I’m not a fan however, of the tone of language used in their discussion. It’s very apologetic, I think (and I stand to be corrected). The use of words like ‘donate to musicians’ and ‘help artists in need’ just shifts the whole thing around. Everybody is affected. I don’t think it’s fair to give musicians that kind of image. I do however agree with half of their discussions on the reinvention of the artist in this era (why I keep calling it an era, I don’t know- it’s only been two months in Asia and less than two weeks in the west). 

So, what do I think about now and going forward? Two things, maybe three; 

1. Live-streaming is the future of entertainment consumption. So yeah, thank you Mark Zuckerberg for Facebook and Instagram. But if you’re a performer and you’re trying to make money from your streaming, Stageit! That’s the way to go.  I don’t remember fully but you can sell tickets for viewership. If you can’t, then I'm sure your guest can tip you for what they watch. In the past streaming has been just one of those things. Now, we have been forced to take one huge leap into the future where large group gatherings may not be favourable to attend- well, there goes Coachella, theatre shows, cinemas and every other social gathering in that category. 
2. Stop releasing music on iTunes and Spotify for streaming. These two are already crowded! They are also dominated by the more popular musicians who, when it comes to numbers, will be the ones who benefit from these platforms’ returns. If you’re trying to make USD$10k from Spotify streams for example, you need roughly 1.4mil plays. Yup. That’s before everybody takes their cut by the way. Instead, release your music on platforms like Topspin and Bandcamp or better yet open a website with bandzoogle and release your music there; only pay for transaction fee - $0.30/transaction. Everything is yours. Streaming music is not the way to monetise your content. It’s a great way to build awareness, but definitely not money. 
3. When copyright laws were established between 1810-1909, their sole purpose was to help progress creativity. In as much as we are now more physically apart, this is the perfect time for us to get into communal creativity. I asked Lucille what she thinks the future of entertainment looks like. She pointed out something interesting; “artists need to be able to create and collaborate remotely.” How about we call together a group of learned theatre alumni to go on a joint venture via google docs, collaborative pages projects and create plays that are relevant to these times? Imagine the next big show is built by a bunch of creatives living in five different countries, working on a joint document? Egos aside, I believe this generation is able to pull this off. This can work for music composition too by the way, if its not already being done. Anybody want to collaborate? I’m right here! Hahaha. 
4. Why did I think that we could actually experience entertainment through holograms? I’ve clearly watched enough sci-fi movies. But I was so sure (and still am) that we can help people experience entertainment almost beyond the screen in their living rooms. I’m not talking curved screens and VR glasses. I’m talking immersive holographic experiences. Maybe thats far fetched.. but a man can dream! 

Here’s a closing, reflective remark- who are you without your job? A friend of mine says, “this is definitely Mother Earth sending us to our rooms to think about what we’ve done!” Beyond that, could it be that half the world (maybe more) doesn’t know who they are without their work- without instagram stories of a new country you’re visiting, without showing off your new shoes or new car and complaining about your workmates. It’s you and the four walls till God-knows when. Is that scary? This sounds aggressive, but lets reflect. Think on this and see where you come out in the end. I type this with love. YOU ARE NOT YOUR JOB. 

Thanks for reading this lengthy piece. Views and comments are welcome.