To support musicians around the world who have had gigs and festivals cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Bandcamp has announced it’ll be waiving its revenue share for 24 hours this week.
The site, where just about every independent artist hosts and sells their music and merchandise, will not take its standard share of money from midnight Thursday night to midnight Friday night (US Pacific Time), meaning that these artists will get the whole amount of revenue from sales that day.
So for us, that means we’ve got from 6pm Friday March 20, to 6pm Saturday March 21 to chuck some cash at our fave artists on Bandcamp.
“For many artists, a single day of boosted sales can mean the difference between being able to pay rent or not,” co-founder and CEO Ethan Diamond said in a statement.
“Still, we consider this just a starting point. Musicians will continue to feel the effects of lost touring income for many months to come, so we’re also sharing some ideas below on how fans can support the artists they love and how artists can give fans new, creative ways to provide support.”
Bandcamp usually takes a 15% share of revenue on music and a 10% share on merch, which doesn’t seem like much, but it’s something to help fill the financial gap that the COVID-19 coronavirus has made.
With cancelled shows and festivals, musicians across the country and the world are facing a really tough time financially – especially if their music is their sole income.
Since the start of the pandemic, I Lost My Gig has been gathering data on how many shows have been canned, and jobs and revenue lost, and as of March 17, at least $100m of income has been lost in the entertainment industry alone.
If there’s any time you’ve been itching to get into some new music, or buy some new merch, this is the time to do it.
