Putting on concerts in houses and unusual venues has, understandably, not been a goer during the Covid-19 pandemic. Sofar Sounds quickly pivoted to livestreams, launching its ‘listening room‘ earlier this year to broadcast performances online.
Having just put on its 100th livestream, Sofar Sounds has published some stats and lessons. “Overall, 45,000 have viewed the shows live on our website with hundreds tuning in live and thousands more watching on YouTube. Around 340,000 have viewed the listening room videos in total,” explained its blog post.
“One artist, Scarypoolparty from Los Angeles, made $10,000 in donations. The average artist has earned around $500 per show, including the $100 fee from Sofar. Overall, donations direct to artists have reached $38,000.”
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I really like the idea of Sofar Sounds, but being a struggling artist myself, I’m wondering if the 20% cut ($100 out of $500) Sofar Sounds takes from the artist is a bit too much?
Hey I work for Sofar and just want to clarify that we’re paying the $100 fee for the artist to take part in the listening room streams. Any donations received go directly to the artists too- which have been around the $400 mark.
Hi James, thanks for your support! The $100 fee is actually an additional payment from Sofar Sounds to the artist, not a cut of their donations. Artists walk away with 100% of the donations raised—we don’t take anything. Hope this helps clear things up, but you can always reach out with any further questions or feedback.
Hi James, thanks for your support! The $100 fee is actually a payment from Sofar Sounds to the artist, not a cut of their donations. Artists walk away with 100% of the donations raised, we don’t take anything. Hope this helps clear things up, but you can always reach out with any further questions or feedback.