Electronic music is suffering considerably from the Covid-19 pandemic, given the difficulties of safely opening clubs and putting on live events at any scale.
The Netherlands may be in the most precarious position of all according to a new report presented at the ADE conference last week, and authored by Music Ally.
Figures from DJ Monitor/ Rightscheck.com, released in advance for the event, showed how the Netherlands is Europe’s leader when it comes to festivals (391 with a capacity of over 1000 people), with 85-90% of those estimated to be largely or wholly focused on electronic music.
Only around 20 of them were able to go ahead in the early part of 2020, meaning that 95% of festivals in the Netherlands were cancelled or postponed this year. The report estimated the cost of lost earnings in performing rights fees for songwriters alone from those events at around €50m ($58.8m).
The Netherlands is rightly famed for its dance culture – eight of the top 20 DJs in DJ Magazine’s rankings are Dutch – playing an average of 100 shows a year. ADE is pressing for the Dutch government to recognise the peril, and offer more targeted funding for the electronic music sector to help it survive.
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