Sustaining the arts in this brave new world - Part 2

This is a follow up post to the earlier one Sustaining the arts in this brave new world.

A few weeks ago I had started speaking out about a cause close to my heart - sustenance of the arts and the artists. It was mostly concerns about the reality of the entertainment space, which has been dealt a near fatal blow by this unprecedented pandemic - THE COVID-19.

What I also realize is, complaining about the problem is merely stating the obvious. It really does nothing to solve the problem. Over the years, as I have lived and learned more about life, thinking about solutions (not necessarily perfect ones) feels like a better way to expend energy rather than getting anxious about the situation.

One of the missions of Taalmagic has always been that a musician must not have to perform for FREE. (S)he must get paid for the program that they are asked to perform in. In the pre-corona days, we used to rely heavily on sponsorships (which were rare and erratic) accompanied by an appeal to our patrons (the audience) to make a donation at the end of the concert. Both these methods worked but it lacked two very important things. One, it was unpredictable & two it was not sustainable. Eventually we needed a reliable model. The most obvious option was to ticket our shows. Given our perception of the realities at that time, we were hesitant to ticket our shows and continued to depend on sponsorships & donations.

One fine day, COVID-19 happened. While this has been the most unfortunate world event in recent times, it also had some small silver lining. This pandemic gave rise to an oft-repeated phrase - "THE NEW NORMAL". Everyone, both individual as well as business have been embracing this phrase wholeheartedly.  This presented a great opportunity to establish "THE NEW NORMAL" in the performing arts space as well. The new normal for us was, to look for and adoptt a repeatable/sustainable economic model for the music space.

As soon as the lockdown was being relaxed, we planned a concert (June 7, 2020). The cancelled concert of March suddenly came back to life - with one small change. This time the program was ticketed. We were a bit apprehensive about this decision initially but we went ahead with the plan anyway. The result was nothing short of encouraging. It was indeed the proverbial shot in the arm. The goal was met and the support and encouragement was simply awesome. One of the biggest positives of a ticket show is that even though it is online, most of the audience engages through the entire performance rather than watching it in bits and pieces. Performing LIVE while staring at a camera was a surreal experience. We were so used to seeing people sitting just a few feet away from us but in a short while we were able to adjust to it and enjoyed the session throroughly.

In conclusion, this "NEW NORMAL" is the way forward. I hope Taalmagic is able to show the way to many of our brethren in the performing arts space so that they have an option to charge a reasonable remuneration for their performances and don't feel used or exploited. Over a period of time, the NEW NORMAL will become THE NORMAL and when that happens it will ensure that good content sustains and not so good content does not.

Welcome to the brave new world.