In completely unsurprising news, the live music industry did abysmally this year. According to a year-end report published by Pollstar, box office sales were originally expected to generate $12.2 billion in revenue throughout 2020. Box offices ended up $9.7 billion in the hole instead.
Pollstar also indicated the industry will suffer an overall loss of $30 billion in 2020. This figure factors in everything from sponsorships and ticketing to merchandise and restaurants.
"It’s been an extraordinarily difficult year for the events industry, which has been disproportionately impacted by the coronavirus. As painful as it is to chronicle the adversity and loss our industry and many of our colleagues faced, we understand it is a critical undertaking towards facilitating our recovery, which is thankfully on the horizon," said Ray Waddell, President of Oak View Group’s Media & Conferences Division, who manages Pollstar.
He continued, "With vaccines, better testing, new safety and sanitization protocols, smart ticketing and other innovations, the live industry will be ramping up in the coming months, and we’re sure that at this time next year we’ll have a very different story to tell."
LiveNation expects concerts to return by 2021, but it remains to be seen how many venues will make it through the pandemic. Read the full report here.
Just out of curiosity, I'd love to see how individual bands ended up doing with their livestreams. Did they mitigate the damage at all? Did literally anyone do well in 2020?
