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- [Narrator] Concerts are canceled, a lot of them.
With large gatherings limited or prohibited
due to the coronavirus,
many artists are now performing online for free.
This change has upended the live music business.
The industry was on track
to generate nearly $30 billion this year
before the pandemic hit.
Now, analysts project a 75% drop in global revenue,
down to $6.5 billion.
With the industry in crisis, artists and producers
are reimagining concerts but without crowds,
and some of these new shows
are already attracting millions of fans globally.
- Going to a concert and being in a big crowd,
that's one live experience,
but doesn't mean that it's the only live experience.
- [Narrator] Now the question
is whether they'll also be able to bring in the cash.
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In 2019, live music was the second biggest revenue driver
for the music industry.
Mark Mulligan, a music business and technology analyst,
says it hasn't always been that way.
- It wasn't until we got to the end of the '90s
and throughout the 2000s when music piracy
hit the music business.
At that time, for every dollar lost,
the live music industry gained a couple of dollars
and we saw that, you know, live music thrived
and became this hugely professional business we've got now.
- [Narrator] Now with the coronavirus pandemic,
many in the industry fear that smaller concert promoters
and venues may be forced to close
while others could be acquired
by large concert promoters like Live Nation.
- We saw a complete hit on the revenues
of the big live companies but also crucially
music artists have spent years seeing live music
as a main source of income, and that just stopped,
and it's a change which is probably gonna take
up to three years for us to fully recover from.
- [Narrator] With much of the world still on pause,
artists and promoters are getting creative.
Big names like John Legend
as well as indie artists are turning to homespun live shows
as a means to continue performing.
The Verzuz Instagram Live series of beat battles
where hip hop legends face off
has garnered over 17 million live views,
but it's not replacing concerts as a source of revenue.
- The vast majority of livestreamed events
and virtual events as a whole at the moment are free,
and that is something that needs to be fixed
because artists need the income.
They can't afford what used to be their main income source
to become a free product in this digital domain.
- [Narrator] One way the industry is selling tickets
right now is through drive-in concerts.
These shows have started popping up around the world
in Denmark, Germany, Croatia, South Korea,
and in the United States.
They're providing a way for fans to see artists in person
from the safety of their cars,
but tickets for these shows aren't running cheap.
In Denmark, Mads Langer's June drive-in concerts
cost the equivalent of 98 U.S. dollars per car.
The shows can sell up to 500 tickets.
- Even with social distancing measures in place,
you know, something as safe as a drive-in,
you've still got a question
of what does it do to the live experience itself.
We will see a realignment of what live music
is worth to consumers, and therefore a realignment
of what you can charge for different types of events.
- [Narrator] The pandemic has fueled other innovations
like multiplayer video game concerts.
On April 23rd, more than 12 million Fortnite players
attended Travis Scott's 10-minute virtual performance,
the game's biggest event ever.
Instead of selling traditional tickets,
the production sold merchandise
and fans could buy in-game upgrades.
Fortnite's developer, Epic Games,
didn't confirm whether the event was profitable or not.
Shortly after the concert, they launched a new feature
called Party Royale where users can virtually hang out
and listen to live sets with artists like Steve Aoki,
Dillon Francis, and Deadmau5.
- Within the next year or two, not in the distant future,
we're going to see a lot more in-game concerts.
Some of the record labels are already hiring people
to be able to actually program their artists into games.
The record labels are going to be seeing it
as a revenue source where they can start licensing
the performances of their artists
much in the same way as they'd license music
to streaming services.
- [Narrator] Mulligan says these alternative performances
can become a lucrative avenue for the music industry,
even after the pandemic subsides
and live in-person concerts fully return.
- You know, we've got brands sponsoring some livestreams.
We've got some artists charging.
At the moment, it's nearly all free,
but we'll see the emergence of more paid options.
Livestreaming is going to be the thing that people do most.
Games might be the one that generates the most engagement
and the most revenue there.
- [Narrator] Analysts say that this is a moment
where rapid innovation is leading the industry
into a new era.
- You know, we'll have virtual music concert booking agents.
We might have agencies just there to make avatars
for artists appearing in games,
so yes, it's gonna be tough,
yes, some people are gonna struggle,
but we're also going to see the emergence
of a new innovative live music industry.
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