Streaming isn’t necessarily the best thing for artists when it comes to making money, as evidenced by the stories that sometimes pop up about how many streams it takes to actually earn decent income. Bandcamp is one of the more artist-friendly platforms in that regard, though. They keep a cut of sales, yes, but it’s a smaller portion than most other distribution platforms out there. This past Friday, they did artists an even bigger favor by giving up their portion of sales entirely, so artists got 100 percent of the profits from song, album, and merch sales for the day. Unsurprisingly, then, Friday was a great day for Bandcamp artists, as they earned about $4.3 million from music and merch sales.
Bandcamp shared a post about Friday, saying that nearly 800,000 items were sold in 24 hours, which is up from about 47,000 items sold on Bandcamp on a typical Friday, so this past Friday’s sales were 15 times better than normal. Bandcamp also notes that during the peak time, about 11 items were being sold per second.
The post concludes, “We don’t yet know the long-term impact of Covid-19, but we know that we all need music — to uplift and inspire us, to heal us, and to give us hope. We’ll continue working to make Bandcamp the best place for fans and artists to come together and sustain each other in the challenging times ahead. Thank you again, and we wish you all good health!”
Although the promotion is over, now is still a good time to help artists by buying something from them on Bandcamp. For inspiration, check out our 2019 and 2018 lists of the best hidden gems on the platform.
