Live tours are cancelled, so musicians are turning to Twitch

On Tuesday night, musician Marc Rebillet live-streamed on Twitch, looping layers of piano while crooning over the top to create a jazzy, lo-fi track on the fly. Any other day, this would have been a usual performance for Rebillet, who is known for recording his solo sets. But Rebillet wasn’t supposed to be at home on Tuesday night; he was supposed to be performing in Australia. Like many other musicians, his tour was suddenly canceled as a result of the novel coronavirus pandemic. Now, he’s stuck at home, hoping Twitch can mitigate the financial damage from canceled shows. “I’m just trying to survive,” he says, “and Twitch has the highest earning potential for livestreams.”

There’s one likely reason: while Instagram is an easy option to reach lots of people en masse, Twitch offers an abundance of ways to make money. “It’s more financially focused,” says musician and longtime Twitch streamer Ducky. “It supports different tiers of subscriptions and donations. People can subscribe to a channel for free with their Amazon Prime account. Fans can tip in micro amounts with things like Cheers. Other platforms usually just pay out on ad revenue or number of plays.”

So if you normally would attend music concerts as a fan you may want to consider supporting them on Twitch.

See Tours are canceled, so musicians are turning to Twitch

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