😷 Digitizing Burning Man; Switzerland scraps event capacity limit from Oct 1; Crew Nation raises $15M for out-of-work technicians; The Weeknd's TikTok show reached 2M viewers

Daily update for the music business on the coronavirus (August 14)

How isolation is a golden opportunity for musicians (LA Times)

Apps like Acapella make it possible to record separate chamber music parts and combine them. Technology and performance practice are joined as string quartets are streamed to home computers around the world. At the same time, composers are in more dialogue with performers through virtual platforms and inspired by technology to take greater risks, creating works such as “Full Pink Moon,” by Pauline Oliveros, directed by Sean Griffin.

Navigating the Music Industry’s New Normal with Manager Rishon Blumberg (Music Tectonics)

Rishon Blumberg of Brick Wall Management explores how artists are adapting to stay afloat during this global pandemic and navigate a world without touring. From Instagram livestreams to drive-in theater style concerts, what’s working to fill the gaps?

Live events

Milan study finds appetite for smaller live events (IQ)

The report states that one of the biggest hurdles to making smaller events sustainable is the administrative permits and licenses required, which can be very complex and costly to manage, especially in Italy where the survey was conducted.

Crew Nation raises $15m for out-of-work technicians (IQ)

Currently, applications are open for those who have been financially impacted from concerts originally scheduled to take place in June 2020. The deadline to submit an application is 16 August.

If there's a Bonnaroo 2021, who could perform? Festival organizers 'have to be optimistic' (Knox News)

Fans on social media seemed surprised that Bonnaroo held onto the September date for so long before canceling. But canceling involves coordinating the announcement with roughly 150 artists, preparing the staff and planning for refunds. 

How Soon Is Too Soon? Nashville's Music Venues Struggle With When And How To Open Again (Billboard)

To reopen, owners need to rehire staff, find and book local bands, restock inventory (from alcohol to toilet paper) and introduce new safety protocols, such as sanitation stations, wireless ticket scanners and contactless points of sale. Of the 16 indie venues that MVAN represents, 14 have remained closed since March, and the two that reopened at 50% ceased operations within weeks.

How Live Music Is Coping, And What The Near Future Will Bring (NPR)

Rather than waiting for an emergency to solicit donations, DIY music spaces and medium-sized venues could build deeper digital communities and experiment with support models like memberships and subscriptions. Something like Patreon, but for places.

U.K. Opens “First” Socially Distanced Venue, Seating 2,500 on 500 Spaced-Out Viewing Platforms (Variety)

The U.K. gig was similar to what has been going down in America at select drive-in concerts… but without the cars. Ironically, the biggest example yet anywhere in the world of an all-pedestrians concert happening with social distancing guidelines enforced went down in a country that had previously put the kabosh on U.S.-style drive-in concerts because of health concerns.

No cap limit as Switzerland clears return of major shows (IQ)

Events with more than 1,000 people will once again be permitted in Switzerland from 1 October, the country’s governing Federal Council has announced. All major events will need to approved by the governments of Switzerland’s 26 semi-autonomous member states, the cantons, which are urged to take into account infection rates locally, as well as their contract-tracing capabilities.

Virtual events

Digitizing Burning Man (TechCrunch)

With just a few weeks before the event is set to kick off, the organization is bringing together a group of technologists with backgrounds in virtual reality, blockchain, hypnotism and immersive theatre to create a web of hacked-together social products that they hope will capture the atmosphere of Burning Man.

The Weeknd Virtual Concert on TikTok Drew Over 2M Viewers, Raised $350,000 for Equal Justice Initiative (Variety)

The concert followed a loose narrative, as The Weeknd led fans through a “hallucinatory XR dream world,” according to producers. During key moments of the broadcast, fans voted in the comments to guide the visual theme of the experience.

Tomorrowland's virtual festival set a new standard for digital events — here's how they did it (DJ Mag)

Translating the green screen on-stage recordings into a moveable, scalable virtual world, where the six 4k cameras could be combined with 38 virtual cameras, for wide sweeping shots of the 280,000 virtual festival-goers, was handled by a company called stYpe. It specialises in virtual and augmented-reality camera tracking and virtual studio effects for live broadcast.

How to successfully livestream a music event (Music Ally)

“Zoom has barriers – it doesn’t sound quite as good as YouTube; it doesn’t look quite as good as YouTube,” Mangan says. “But the slight degradation infidelity is over-compensated tenfold with this whole other thing, which is the interactivity. Being able to see the audience; the audience can see each other; all kinds of crazy behaviours are happening.” 

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Thoughts

I want to add a wider view, since a number of interesting pieces of research have come out recently. For instance, research into which face masks are most effective in reducing the spread of aerosols and why bandanas are basically useless. As more people ‘recover’ from COVID-19, we are also getting more data on what recovery looks like. The lingering health problems for former COVID-19 patients are making experts question whether we should treat COVID-19 like a chronic disease. Finally, a perspective on the pandemic beyond 2021, which utilizes models where various currently unknown variables are tested, such as how long immunity lasts and what that means for future waves of outbreaks.

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Music

One of the tracks I was listening to while composing this newsletter, was the original release of The Prodigy’s Everybody in the Place, which is different from the version that the song went on to become known as. The thing The Prodigy achieved was that their music sounded like “The Prodigy” - transcending the genres where it came from. However with the original version of the track, you can still clearly hear the context of the breakbeat hardcore genre and hear what The Prodigy sounded like as participants of an emerging subculture rather than the leaders of it.

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MUSIC x CORONA goes out every weekday and is composed by Bas Grasmayer and Maarten Walraven.

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