The State of the Music Business 2021

Just when it seemed that the music industry had settled around a new model — one where live entertainment is an artist’s main source of revenue — the pandemic completely up-ended the business. Suddenly, publishing and recorded music began growing in value exponentially while the concert business was almost completely shut down for nearly a year and a half. But with the industry slowly — and hopefully — returning to pre-pandemic conditions, what happens next? Will the touring business return fully to normal within a year? Two years? Ever? (And how many independent concert venues will still be in business if and when it does?) Is livestreaming here to stay? And will publishing and recorded-music catalogs keep growing in value, or is this a bubble? It’s all a moving target, but we’ll gather leaders from key industry sectors to try to make some sense of it and offer possible pathways forward.