Many of us would have been attending and looking forward to upcoming concerts and summer festivals, however, most have been cancelled or postponed due to the global pandemic.
The music industry has had to find new ways to keep fans and artists connected during these times. With the internet and social media platforms including Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, musicians have been busy keeping in touch with their fan bases through livestreams and posts. For example, British artist Yungblud, who was due to do a tour in the UK starting in May, has been keeping in touch with his fans through livestreams, online pub quizzes, his own talk show ‘The Yungblud Show’, a YouTube series called ‘Stay Home With: Yungblud’, re-uploading his Brixton Academy concert from November 2019, fundraising for meals for children, releasing new music as well as posting on social media.
When he re-uploaded his concert, the idea was for everyone to watch it at the same time, get dressed as if they were going to the concert and post pictures of themselves ready to go to the gig. This made it feel as if everyone was still connected and together, although everyone was self-isolating at home.
International artists BTS, who were due to play two nights at Twickenham stadium in July, have also postponed their tour due to Covid-19. They have been keeping their fans all around the world entertained through social media events.
The largest one they have done up until now was a weekend event across the 18th-19th of April called Bang Bang Con, where they livestreamed 8 of their old concerts across 24 hours. During the intervals between the concerts, the members of the band would appear to keep fans active and engaged through physical activities. Simultaneously around the world during the livestream, 2 million fans were watching at the same time, accumulating over 50 million views during the weekend. At the end of the stream, they also teased that another event of some shape or form would be taking place in June.
ARMY (a BTS fan) Juana, 15, said that “Bang Bang Con was a very exciting event which brought together many ARMY’s from different places in the world through a livestream. I believe this was a great idea because this included people who might have never been to a concert and gave them the chance to feel included in our community. It also made people forget about Covid-19 for a bit. I really enjoyed it”.
As well as this, through the V Live app, YouTube, Weverse and Twitter the members have been regularly livestreaming and posting to keep in touch with fans all over the world.
Technology has allowed fans and artists to keep in touch, but hopefully as the pandemic across the world improves, fans will be able to physically attend live events from their favourite artists as nothing can never truly replace human contact.
By Emilie Brown
