Live from your living room

Published in El Pais, 25 April 2020.

With the COVID-19, life as we know it has forever changed. It is dangerous to go out in public and everyone is staying at home. Gatherings are outright forbidden with severe fines for anyone breaking the rules. Restaurants can only do takeout and bars and clubs are closed for the foreseeable future. Like it or not it seems for now Netflix and reading will be the prime source of entertainment.

When this will change is anyone’s guess. Governments around the world are saying even when the quarantine is lifted restrictions will be eased and not outright eliminated until a vaccine is found. This means that clubs and bars will likely be closed months after the quarantine is over and restaurants will likely have to have every other table empty. For those looking forward to going to a local sporting event or concert, forget about it as that will likely not happen for a very long time.

So, what are we to do? Well it may not be the same, but musicians are starting to look to the internet to do performances. Last week, artists around the world got together to stream their performances of various songs. Fans can tune in to when one their favourite groups or solo acts were performing and were provided a link to donate should they chose to do so. Of course, now that the performance is over, anyone is free to check out the recordings themselves at anytime. That event was not the first of its kind either, as Italian Singer Andrea Bocelli live streamed his Easter performance on YouTube which was watched by 3.4 million live and a week later it accumulated almost 39 million views.

One has to wonder if we will see more performances as time goes by with some even requiring a fee in order to watch. Many will point out that attending a concert and watching it online is not the same but now that live concerts are forbidden, they do not have a choice. Setting up a virtual concert also has a fraction of the cost of doing a World Tour so an artist will not require a large subscription base in order to see a profit.

As the worldwide shutdown continues entertainers are looking for new venues, and they may decide even after this is over to continue to stream their performances.