On Friday, March 20th, Bandcamp waived its revenue shares for 24 hours as a way to help artists who have felt the financial impact of COVID-19.
The service reported that the event resulted in the biggest sales day in Bandcamp’s history. In a blog post, Bandcamp revealed that on a typical Friday, fans buy around 47,000 items. This Friday, fans purchased around 800,000 — or $4.3 million worth of music and merch. “That’s more than 15 times our normal Friday, and at the peak, fans were buying 11 items per second,” Bandcamp wrote.
“We don’t yet know the long-term impact of Covid-19, but we know that we all need music—to uplift and inspire us, to heal us, and to give us hope,” Bandcamp continued. “We’ll continue working to make Bandcamp the best place for fans and artists to come together and sustain each other in the challenging times ahead.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the live music industry to a standstill. Resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in ticket-sales losses, generating devastating financial anxiety for artists and industry-adjacent folk globally. We’re living in unprecedented, harrowing times — but there is a lot to be said about the unrelenting community spirit and unifying displays of hope we’ve witnessed these past few weeks.
