For many days this year, Bandcamp held Bandcamp Fridays, during which they waived their usual cut of sales on their platform to help support artists during the pandemic. Now the site in an update post has revealed how much money artists have earned through this initiative and that the event will continue into 2021.
The post notes that over the course of the first Friday of each month since March (so nine days), “fans paid artists and labels $40 million dollars” thanks to Bandcamp waiving their cut of revenues for the day. They also note that “nearly 800,000 fans” participated.
The post also reveals that Bandcamp currently has a handful more Bandcamp Fridays scheduled for 2021, on February 5, March 5, April 2, and May 7, since “it will likely be several months before live performance revenue starts to return.”
Furthermore, Bandcamp points out that artists get a significant cut of their sales even when it’s not Bandcamp Friday: “If you’ve started to feel guilty about buying music on any day other than Bandcamp Friday, here’s something to keep in mind: on Bandcamp Fridays, an average of 93% of your money reaches the artist/label (after payment processor fees). When you make a purchase on any other day of the month (as 2.5 million of you have since March, buying an additional $145 million worth of music and merch) an average of 82% reaches the artist/label. Every day is a good day to directly support artists on Bandcamp!”
Read the full post here.
