There are some early encouraging moves from the likes of Bandsintown and Dice but both only represent subsegments of the market and have only partial integration with the big platforms though push traffic to them – 60% of Bandsintown live streamed listings go to Facebook and YouTube, while a further 8% go to Twitch. Bandsintown may even be a candidate for the genesis of an industry coordinated approach.
Whatever the final destination of the evolution of discovery, the mid-term outlook for live will be a more diverse and nuanced one than that which existed pre-COVID-19. Artists and platforms will take the lockdown momentum into the post-lockdown world. The combination of factors such as
reduced venue capacities, fewer venues due to closures, lower consumer demand and also fewer artists willing to risk performing will mean that current experiments around live
streaming and virtual concerts will contribute to a new look live sector.