Due to the out-of-control outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic, governments have had to order restrictions on crowd gatherings, leading to the postponement of many major events, from the Cannes Film Festival (France) to the Olympics.
What impact has the music industry suffered?
The speed of the outbreak has caused chaos in all areas of the entertainment industry.
To be able to organize a music event with a scale of 500 people or more, the organizers must take at least one to two months to plan and ensure that all stages go smoothly.
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[ POSTPONEMENT ANNOUNCEMENT ] While we are disappointed that Wired Music Week 2020 will not be taking place as planned, our priority lies in the health and safety of all our speakers, attending, and everyone who is involved in bringing this event to life.
A post shared by Wired Music Week (@wiredmusicweek) on Mar 6, 2020 at 6:11am PST
Asia’s largest music conference – Wired Music Week (Malaysia) – announced the cancellation of the conference two weeks ago.
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A post shared by Coachella (@coachella) on March 10, 2020 at 4:04 pm PDT
Coachella, the world’s largest music festival taking place in California, USA, also had to announce a postponement due to the COVID-19 epidemic.
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OFFICIAL NOTICE
A post shared by Ultra Music Festival (@ultra) on March 6, 2020 at 6:43 am PST
The Ultra Miami electronic music festival taking place in March in Miami, Florida is postponed to March 2021.
No country is an exception.
In Vietnam, many performances by artists: Dan Truong, Suni Ha Linh, Erik, My Tam, Dam Vinh Hung… were also postponed.
Photo: Ravolution Music Festival
Clearly, the promising growth in overall music industry revenues over the past few years could easily fizzle out during this prolonged period of loss.
Domino effect in the economy
Given the context of canceled music festivals being the root of a system, what is the Domino effect that is causing this system?
Photo: Unsplash
In particular, large music events with a scale of 300,000 people from different countries will bring benefits to the service industry – typically fields related to restaurants, hotels, and souvenir shops.
Opportunities for online music platforms
Recently, according to a data report from the online music application Spotify, this application’s Top 200 best songs playlist reached 1.31 billion views in just 5 days (March 13, 2020 – March 17, 2020).
Photo: Heidi Fin
Other online music platforms such as Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music (audio) and Pandora also achieved the highest viewership this year.
Things we can do
The COVID-19 epidemic is a nightmare scenario that threatens the viability of the music industry.
In addition, to prevent music events from being delayed any further, everyone’s practical action right now is to limit going out, protect themselves and their families to prevent the spread of the disease,