Bands are welcoming a summer that belongs to them both online and offline and continues to serve as a spiritual delicacy to people as the industry recovers from the coronavirus epidemic.

In July, two reality shows on bands broadcast in China online, exciting hungry music fans. "The Big Band," where lesser-known bands compete for the top five bands of the year, has rolled on to its second season. It topped all online shows in viewership when the first episode was aired and has maintained a high audience rating so far just as its much beloved first season.

Another "The Coming One: Super Band," which selects brilliant young players to form a super band, also had each of its first four episodes garnering more than 100 million views.

Epidemic, a blow yet an opportunity to bands

The unexpected epidemic has heavily affected the music industry this year.

Many music festivals have been cancelled or delayed across the world, including the 50-year-old Glastonbury Festival in Europe, the celebrated Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in the U.S., and the influential Strawberry Music Festival in China.

But this has also given some musicians time to take a step back to discover other opportunities. 

Back as early as in January, some band members started to communicate with fans online. Peng Lei, lead vocalist and guitarist of the popular Chinese band New Pants, recorded himself playing music in videos and shared them on social platforms almost everyday for nearly a month.

Similarly, when British isolated themselves to keep social distancing, Queen's guitarist Brian May played solos at his fans' requests and even took to the platform as a music teacher, explaining in details his rifts and chords. 

Meanwhile, with the vacuum of real-life gigs, some organizers put these musicians together to hold remote concerts. A front runner is Modern Sky, the initiator of Strawberry Music Festival, who gathered 73 bands to hold an online music festival for five consecutive days in early February.

The show presents bands' recorded at-home-performances and their past live shows and attracted a total of one million viewers, with a peak of 500,000 watching at the same time. 

"We are considering to commercialize it," said Shen Yue, vice-president of Modern Sky, adding "we want to provide good music products to people at home soon, as well as turn the cost into revenue soon. Reacting fast and transforming the products is important in dealing with crisis."

Since in-person venues can only hold a limited number of audience, the internet gives music festivals more space to grow, including gaining more audience and royalty revenue, as well as more channels to expand their influence. 

The online music festival may be unable to earn profit in the short run, but the industry has already seen the early dawn after a long night of epidemic.

This August will see in-person music festivals coming back. The Midi Music Festival, one of the largest music festivals in China, announced it will hold a two-day concert this month. People were so enthusiastic that more than 2,000 tickets were sold out in less than half an hour after being released.

Also, the Strawberry Music Festival announced to hold six concerts in six cities across China, with more than 40 bands joining in. As more music events held across the country, bands will welcome their highlights this summer.

(Cover image via CFP)