(photo: Yvette de Wit)
Electronic music fans are supporting their favorite artists amid the COVID-19 coronavirus crisis, as demonstrated by the success of last weekend’s Digital Mirage Festival. The event attracted approximately one million unique viewers and raised roughly $300,000 for charity.
The three-day music festival featured performances from 51 artists, including electronic mainstays Louis The Child, Alison Wonderland, Dab the Sky, and many others. One million unique viewers tuned in, and concurrent viewership peaked at about 200,000, factoring for those who watched on YouTube and those who did so on PlayStation.
With such a large number of fans having enjoyed the music (and continuing to enjoy it, as performance replays are garnering quite a few views on YouTube), Digital Mirage also served as an immensely beneficial promotional opportunity, particularly for the independent, up-and-coming artists who participated.
Digital Mirage’s sizable audience helped raise over $300,000 for the Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, which supports artists and music industry employees who are struggling financially because of disease, disability, the coronavirus pandemic, or other emergencies.
Coronavirus concerns have forced promoters and artists to cancel essentially all upcoming concerts and music festivals. In turn, popular acts and rising musicians alike are exploring different (and remote) ways to secure revenue and connect with fans.
Ultra Music previously teamed up with SiriusXM to bring fans an all-digital edition of their music festival, and Amazon coordinated with SXSW to release films that were slated to debut at the Austin, Texas, mega-festival.
On April 1st, Digital Music News was the first to report that concert-promotion giant Live Nation would also enter the digital-event fray. Under the ‘Live at Home’ banner, the company organizes scheduling information for concerts, interviews, Q&A sessions, talk shows, and virtually all other live content provided by artists.
This morning, Dr. Anthony Fauci stated that antibody tests could become available in the near future, before reiterating that the timetable for reopening the economy is dependent upon an array of factors related to the coronavirus’s prevalence.