I
NSTEAD OF TOURING
Australia and New Zealand,
then returning to the United
States to play Colorado’s
Red Rocks Amphitheatre
in April, Marc Rebillet
is at home in New York,
livestreaming in a brown flowered
bathrobe. “We’re coming right out the
gate with the apocalypse!” he tells the
20,000 viewers tuning in live to his
two-hour “Quarantine Stream: Day
One” broadcast on YouTube, Facebook,
Twitter and Twitch.
Rebillet, the goateed electro-soul
singer known for making up songs on
the spot, raised $15,000 for charity by
selling merchandise and soliciting dona-
tions during the livestream. “I’m giving
100% to the GlobalGiving Coronavirus
Relief Fund — and now I’m a little bit re-
gretting saying 100%. I wish maybe I had
said 50% or something,” he says the day
after the stream. “Looking six months in
the future, I probably will need a little
bit of scratch.”
Like so many artists, Rebillet
says he makes “exponentially” more
money touring than from other income
streams, so the coronavirus shutdown
has decimated his future earnings.
But he’s adapting, at least in part, by
tapping into his robust online follow-
ing — that first quarantine stream drew
over 1.57 million viewers overall, and
he launched “Quarantine Stream: Day
Two” a few days later. “You can drive
yourself crazy thinking about this stuff,
or you can get your ass on the internet,”
he says. “We’re just seeing the begin-
ning of this, and it’s going to be a ride.”
It’s just one of many ways — from the
obvious to the outré — that artists like
him can (and must) adapt right now.LIVESTREAM
FOR FREEAS THEY RETURNED HOME FROM
canceled tours in mid-March,
artists began hosting online concerts
for the massive self-isolation audience:
Coldplay’s Chris Martin on Instagram;
Dropkick Murphys’ annual St. Patrick’s
Day concert in Boston (held this year
in Derry, N.H.) on multiple platforms;
Keith Urban from home in Australia
as his wife, Nicole Kidman, dancedalong. Revenue could eventually follow
— John Legend teased his single
“Actions” during his livestream series,
then released it on streaming services
days later.
Such opportunities aren’t limited
to veterans, though — rising artists
can also use this time to grow their
audiences. After abruptly cutting
off her European tour of 800-capac-
ity venues a few days before it was
supposed to begin, British pop singer
L Devine returned home to New-
castle, England, and launched a five-
show “URL Tour” on different social
media platforms. The first, a March 16
acoustic living-room set on Insta-
gram, drew 32,000 viewers. “There is
a chance you can reach a much wider
audience when you do stuff online,”
she says. “It gives people something
to look forward to.”
Stars with means are willing to per-
form for free or give proceeds to charity
for the foreseeable future. “We’ve just
got to think out of the box and adapt,”
says British rocker Yungblud, who drew
300,000 viewers for his YouTube talk
show, in which musicians and special
guests pointedly did not hug or shakehands. “Even though I’m not earning
money, I’m in a fortunate position where
I’m earning royalties.”LIVESTREAM
FOR CASHIN NEW ORLEANS, BELOVED
jazzman Kermit Ruffins played
his trumpet alone at his closed Treme
Mother-in-Law Lounge, streaming via
Facebook Live, then posted a link to
his Basin Street Records label, which
discounted CDs to $10. The label
quickly drew 30 new customers, who
purchased $30 to $100 apiece in music
and merch. “It seems to be something
there’s a demand for,” adds Basin
Street labelmate Jon Cleary, a pianist
who adapted his weekly local Chickie
Wah Wah gig to Facebook Live and
drew 14,000 viewers for the first night,
many of whom made donations. “You
have to have an audience already for it
to make sense.”
Some platforms are easier to mon-
etize than others. Since the shutdown,
Diplo has performed DJ sets dailyon Twitch (which specializes in video
games but draws musicians through its
easy-to-use functions for paid subscrip-
tions, tipping and ads) and recently
announced that all the artists whose
music he plays will get royalty payouts.
After canceling two scheduled New
Orleans shows, Texas singer-songwriter
Jamie Lin Wilson linked Venmo and
PayPal to Facebook Live and encour-
aged virtual tipping. “I don’t know how
long people are going to go, ‘I love
watching shows in my living room;
here’s five bucks,’ ” she says. “But for
us, those five bucks add up to: ‘OK, I
might survive now.’ ” She managed to
make 75% of the lost revenue for the
two shows and has since taken regular
breaks from home-schooling her four
young children in order to play hourlong
sets for 7,000 to 10,000 viewers.
Patreon adapted its planned three
days of South by Southwest program-
ming to a three-hour “weird stream-
a-thon” that featured Amanda Palmer,
Open Mike Eagle and others; Ben Folds
and Zola Jesus have increased their
paid and free Patreon posts during
the coronavirus crisis. “We hope that’s
a safety net,” says Kerri Pollard, theILLUSTRATIONS BY JENNIFER HEUERLIVE THROUGH THIS
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