In response to the Covid-19 pandemic and artists being hit especially hard as tours and shows are being cancelled for the foreseeable future, Bandcamp waivered their revenue share on sales last Friday (as mentioned here on Folk Radio). After rallying the Bandcamp community to put much-needed money directly into artists’ pockets the results were uplifting to hear.
“The numbers tell a remarkable story: on a typical Friday, fans buy about 47,000 items on Bandcamp, but this past Friday, fans bought nearly 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.”
They concluded “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. 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. Thank you again, and we wish you all good health!”