Musicians in Spain May be the Last to Benefit from Eventual Removal of Lockdown

MANY expatriate musicians in Spain have found themselves without work overnight following the cancellation of all public performances which has hit their pockets dramatically.

Many are doing their best to keep occupied and performing online free of charge but that doesn’t help them especially as most are not eligible to receive benefits for various reasons and live music won’t be back for a long time.

One possible hope of support has disappeared as late last year, international corporation Google suggested that it was considering a feature that would allow people to donate money to websites to support musicians, news publishers and bloggers.

It was to be the equivalent of a tipping option so that those visiting the sites could instruct Google through its platform option to give a one-off donation of up to $5 and this was trialled for a short period of time.

Sadly however, it appears that this option has now been scrapped and Google has itself been seeing a loss of ad revenue so is exploring other means of engaging customers.

Clearly the most successful artists have ongoing royalty income and like the Rolling Stones are still able to release new material thanks to the fact that top artists often have their own home studios as well as access to top remote engineers and producers.

The Covid-19 pandemic has also hit those producing podcasts as surprisingly listening numbers are dropping which in turn has reduced advertising income.

It’s not just artists but promoters who are suffering and it is very likely that major stars who were due to perform in Fuengirola and Marbella this summer have been paid significant advances.