With large gatherings of all kinds canceled, bars and restaurants shuttered, and the hundreds of millions of people practicing social distancing, artists who earn their money from live concerts and events are hurting.
So Amazon's (AMZN -1.44%) Twitch live-streaming platform is teaming up with Bandsintown, a platform that musicians use to promote their upcoming shows, to help those performers bring in some cash during the shutdown.
IMAGE SOURCE: GETTY IMAGES.
Bandsintown and Twitch announced a partnership to enable musicians with more than 2,000 followers to access Twitch's monetization tools when streaming live events. Artists have to first create a Twitch Channel, which is free.
Through Twitch, streamers earn money by accepting subscriptions from their viewers and offering Bits to Cheer, which are virtual goods viewers can purchase to Cheer in chat. The performers get a piece of that revenue. Bandsintown also said its fast-tracking the application process, which normally takes two to five business days.
"The increased effort to prevent the spread of COVID-19 has meant the cancellations of many concerts and festivals in the last weeks," wrote Bandsintown in a blog post. "As fans of live music, all of us at Bandsintown bear a special responsibility to support artists during these difficult times."
Late last week, Bandsintown launched the Bandsintown LIVE channel on Twitch with a 90-minute performance from Black Coffee, a DJ and electronic artist. That concert had 128,000 live views with more than 84,500 unique viewers. The company said nearly 5,000 people signed up to follow the channel on the first day it was active.
