Seems like everyone is out of work or knows someone out of work.
Most working musicians don’t make a lot of money. Only a few “stars” rake in the big $$$$.
Caylee Hammack and her band is one example. They have a record deal with Capital Records and were recently touring in Europe. They were supposed to open for Reba McEntire in a few months.
The work totally disappeared after Coronavirus. The Europe tour was cancelled and they came home.
Faced with no income the band started a lawn mowing company.
That’s the life of a musician. One day you’re on stage and the next your swinging a weed eater.
I checked out her music and Caylee is pretty good.
Yeah, and the knock on effects go on. The guy who runs the practice space my band uses seemed to understand that a lot of his clientele weren’t going to be able to make rent. Even if they had a day job, it was probably in a service industry, which is also shot for the same reason. So when he sent out a message asking for rent in the nicest possible way this month, we made sure to pay it since most of the band has a day job that is still working. Won’t do us (or anyone else involved) if the place shuts down or falls apart before things get going again.
Heck, even my band had a big cluster of shows cancel. Hopefully the clubs will still be there when we can return to normal. It would be terrible if I were depending on them financially. I’m not, but here’s a list of stuff from KCRW that you can to do support your favorite musicians or do for your yourself if you are a musician.
I love live music. It was a big part of my early adult life.
Social media could be a great way to promote local bands and appearance. Post photos and short video of local bands. Talk about the best clubs and what they offer.
Very similar to Nightflying, a free newspaper we used to get that covered the Arkansas music scene. Interviewed the bands and where they’re playing. I used to drive all around the state listening to bands.
It’s a shame that the younger people aren’t interested. They’re missing out on a lot of entertainment. It’s true that there aren’t as many local bands. That’s because there isn’t much demand for them.
I have $600+/mo in expenses for renting my teaching studio, paying down debt on my grand piano, and various subscriptions/memberships.
I haven’t taught a lesson in three weeks. I’m about to pick up again virtually on Monday, but I think it’s only going to work for some of my students, and I’m going to drop all lessons to 30 minutes (at least to start), so I expect a big hit there.
And, all my paying gigs have been canceled/postponed for the next few months. I’ve got a big project that’s in the works culminating in a project August-October that’s a large paycheck for me, and as of now it’s still on, but I’m dubious.
Some of my favorite musicians are the guys who play for tips on Royal Street (New Orleans). I wish I could figure out a way to support them, but I don’t even know their names.
Yup. Old news, actually. I’ve had gigs in September cancel. Even my day job, teaching high school music, is gone. I just heard today that CA schools won’t reopen this school year.
I play bass, so my musical career is as an accompanist. I can’t even really do solo shows on Facebook for a tip jar. Well, I could, but who would watch?
Even for musicians who have been famous, this is a kick in the nuts. The lead singer for Spin Doctors isn’t getting much money from Spotify, because Spotify rips musicians off. Guys like that make a lot of their money through live shows.
It’s hit the arts very hard. We’ve closed our theatre and canceled about half our season so far, I expect we’ll probably have to cancel more. We’re a community theatre so we don’t have a huge payroll, and we’ve been well run for many years so we have enough cushion to survive. We’ve got about six months worth of operational expenses in a reserve account, and our burn rate drops if we’re not mounting any productions and paying artists/designers/royalties/venue rental fees, etc. But we’re not getting any revenue either, so everything has to come out of reserves. We’ve got ~4K/month in rent/utilities/payroll and we’re not producing anything.
Some of the regional professional theatres that have built up over the past couple decades are looking like they’ll shutter completely. We’ve never seen anything like this, working actors, Equity members, who were making a substantial portion of their income from performing are just out of ALL work. It’s not like a show closed and the actors have to get back on the audition circuit, or wait tables till another show is mounted. It’s just the whole livelihood and the backup income as well are just GONE. Broadway will come back, shows like Wicked and The Lion King that make a BILLION dollars will draw investment to re-start them when this is done, but local and regional theatres are in trouble.
Some of us in finance for these non-profits are working on things like forgivable bridge loans to let non-profits keep their payrolls and pay rent/utilities. My company has opened up an emergency matching fund for donors to give to non-profits and is working on expediting the payments from our matching payment processing partner(usually 4-7 weeks). The fundraising and philanthropic communities are kicking into gear as well to have virtual fundraisers and get the funds out the door ASAP. We’ll be able to save a lot of theatres, but a lot of artists/directors/dancers/musicians/designers etc. are going to be hurting even more than they usually do, and they live pretty close to the bone already.
The Kennedy Center got 25 million from the Corona Virus Package, but still sent out notices to the musicians that they would not be receiving any checks after April 3rd. The Kennedy Center intends to furlough 60 percent of their full-time employees after already furloughing approximately 725 part-time staff members. According to the law’s text, the funds provided by the CARES Act should be used to cover operating expenses required to ensure the continuity of the Kennedy Center and its affiliates, including for employee compensation and benefits. The Kennedy Center lists its total assets at $557 million, but can’t afford to keep their musicians on the payroll.
Nitpick: I’m not so sure younger people aren’t interested, I see plenty of young people at shows, when they’re allowed. And it really seems like the number of local bands has remained fairly constant since I began being in bands in the 80’s.
If anything has fluctuated over the years, it’s been places where “younger” people can see the bands they want to see, local or not. In the past, the number of places that would book a smaller band and let anyone under 18 in would and still will fluctuate. Some of my favorite all ages “clubs” in my youthful past amounted to a warehouse that was barely cleared for habitation and connection to the public utilities with a stage built in it. Those places can have a hard time lasting long. So, it can sometimes be hard to attend a smaller show if you can’t legally drink. Beyond that, in some years, it has been hard to find a place for a band to set up a show for customers who are wanting to drink, even in a college town. It’s honestly hard to run a profitable venue, and to run one that actually makes most of its profits on the door instead of the bar is kind of a unicorn.
In recent years, a lot of all ages shows I’ve played made their day-to-day money by being attached to a restaurant or a bar that wasn’t necessary to enter to attend the venue. At this point, being attached to a restaurant or a bar isn’t necessarily going to save the venues that were for local and/or up-and coming acts. Heck, I’m not sure that TV money is going to save one of the venues we played at pretty regularly that had all-ages shows. I’ve played house parties before, and I’ll be more than happy to play them when this is all over, even if they won’t help much in covering practice space rent. I’m not sure what the path out will be for my brothers in the finer arts, but the news from this thread seems to indicate it will not be any easier.
