coronavirus live music

How Coronavirus is Affecting Live Music

From Gigmor Founder, David Baird

As you know, the coronavirus has become a global pandemic and has had a severe economic impact around the world practically overnight. We at Gigmor hope and pray that the spread of the virus will slow after peaking in the coming weeks. Our hearts go out to the millions of people who have been affected or lost loved ones. 

The coronavirus has hit the live music business particularly hard. You’ve seen the news about the cancellations of large events like SXSW and Coachella but hundreds of thousands of local venues are suffering. If millions of people stop going out for more than a month or two, many of these venues won’t survive. And they’re a vital part of the local music scene that is the lifeblood of the business. 

Despite the palpable panic and the real economic damage that’s been done we feel that eventually we’ll look back on this as a short term blip. Live music is baked into the fabric of life and will always be. So we remain optimistic about our long term prospects. 

We’ve spent considerable time in the last couple of weeks thinking about how we can be part of the solution.

In the short term, we’re responding to a surge of requests from venues asking for our help. National touring acts have canceled because of concerns about being on the road and venues suddenly need to fill open dates on their calendars. We’re ideally positioned to help them because many of our 65K independent artists play local gigs almost exclusively. And our platform is well suited to fill last minute slots.

Next, we’re looking for ways to accelerate how we can connect artists, venues and fans, including livestreaming shows and publishing artist profiles that are relevant to fans with music, videos, upcoming shows, etc. We don’t want to live in a world where everyone is isolated in their homes but we know we can play a useful role if that is what the near future looks like.

As a national marketplace and directory of talent we’re thrilled to be able to step in and help local live music communities everywhere. We’ve always believed that technology can bring innumerable benefits to booking and promoting live music and we’re only sorry that it’s taking a global crisis to help prove that. 

We’d love to hear from you at info@gigmor.com with any ideas or suggestions about how we can help you keep music alive!

Gigmor & SoundCloud

Gigmor Partners with SoundCloud

We’re thrilled to announce that Gigmor and SoundCloud have launched a marketing partnership. SoundCloud is the world’s largest streaming site for independent artists and will promote Gigmor as their exclusive live music partner.

With 65,000 artists and 2,500 venues, Gigmor is the leading marketplace for booking live music in North America. Since launching in 2017, Gigmor has booked thousands of artists at a wide variety of venues and private events.

David Baird, Gigmor founder and CEO, says, “We’re proud to be working with one of the most innovative firms in music—one that has launched so many artists’ careers. Adding millions of SoundCloud artists to our service will accelerate our growth because it helps us offer venues what they need most: talented musical artists who can perform live and bring a crowd.”

As part of the deal, Gigmor will offer SoundCloud Pro Unlimited members a 20% discount ($7.99/mo vs. $9.99/mo) to Gigmor’s Pro subscription.

Gigmor Pro members get exclusive access to gigs, direct messaging with venues and industry pros and Gigmor promotes their gigs to their growing database of music fans. Gigmor artist profiles are a best-of-breed EPK and include music, videos, social media accounts, estimated local audience (GigScore), previous and upcoming gigs and more.

If you’re an artist, click here to learn more on how to take advantage of this special offer.

For more information, contact david@gigmor.com.

David Baird 
Founder/CEO

Check It Out: Tiny Desk Concerts in the 21st Century

NPR Music feels antique.

To some, maybe the podcast and music station has aged gracefully. To some, maybe Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton’s weekly opinions on topics like Janet Jackson’s most recent album and the ‘dire’ state of the music world still sound valid and original. But the thick layers of metaphorical cobwebs that line the walls of that podcast’s recording studio in the minds of millennials is, well, undeniable. Millennials are omnipotent in the games of the Internet, so what is it that keeps NPR Music alive? What is NPR Music’s currency? Where does their legitimacy lie?

I argue that it lies in Boilen’s Tiny Desk Concerts and his team’s original, simple and perfected decision-making in choosing artists, acts, and performance pieces to participate in the weekly off-the-cuff acoustic performances. The politics, genres, and ‘boxes’ of the music industry melt away. In a tiny book-filled room, it is an artist and their craft; nothing else, nothing more.

blue_man4_sp_2009_brazilNeed proof? Unsure of my confidence? Take a look at the most recent Tiny Desk Concert. Reemerging from the banquet feast of fame secured from their Las Vegas stint, the Blue Man Group appeared on this week’s acoustic concert. The three blue-faced men are silent, beating at their PVC pipes and strumming their homemade spinulums (an original Blue Man Group instrument that is part slide guitar, part bicycle wheel), and extensive xylophones while spoken word tracks play overhead. It’s simple, rhythmic, out-of-the-box weird, and hilarious. Three blue men tap out a funky beat while the audience is told to breathe their dragon breath and visualize a collective harmony of “winning, winning, winning.”

 

 

Tandersoonhen look too at the Tiny Desk performance held four weeks prior. It was Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals, a more current but equally original 21st crew of genre-benders, that brought young eyes back to Boilen’s ongoing project. Soul layered on top of hip-hop along with something undeniably sexy and smooth, Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals needed this simplified venue to fully convey their inimitable talent. It allowed us millennials – those who have been kissing the unnoticed, worn-out feet of Paak and his crew for too long – to legitimize what the 21st century has made true for so many artists: technology didn’t kill originality. So to remind ourselves of that argued reality, let’s keep Boilen’s bookcase-lined operation intact for a little bit longer, yes?