Bloomberg Covers The Music Industry's Lost Summer
"Summer is the most lucrative time of year for the concert business, as promoters stage festivals all across the nation and host large outdoor shows at stadiums and amphitheaters. The industry stands to miss out on more than $5 billion in ticket sales if there are no shows all summer, according to Pollstar, an industry trade publication. That doesn’t include the lost revenue from advertising, merchandise, and food and beverages.
The ultimate damage is likely to be much worse, and long-lasting. The concert industry stands to remain closed longer than restaurants or movie theaters, which can open with reduced capacity. Sports leagues, meanwhile, make most of their money from media deals with TV networks, and have debated playing games in front of empty stadiums. But concerts depend on large numbers of people gathering in close proximity, the very circumstance in which the coronavirus is most likely to spread.
Government officials in Los Angeles and Illinois have warned there may be no events this year, a view held by many agents and managers. One top industry executive predicted the concert business would take three years to make what it normally does in one."
Read the rest of the article below. A pretty eye-opening read on the state of the industry.
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