Halifax Company’s Live Music Platform Now Has Global Reach
HALIFAX – Depending on where you live in the world, it seems the worst of the pandemic lockdowns are behind us. Nonetheless, the lifting of health mandates and restrictions doesn’t mean life is gone completely back to normal.
One thing that is still missing from a lot of downtown cores is the constant sound of live music coming from bars and other venues.
The music industry was hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic. According to a recent article in The Globe and Mail, more than 100,000 Canadians lost their jobs in the industry in 2020, along with a 92 percent drop in revenue.
While concerts are making a gradual return to our lives, it’s still a slow recovery. But one inventive Halifax music company, Side Door, is providing an incentive to speed things up.
Side Door is expanding its “Back to Live” initiative to try and encourage venues to host live artists. Venue hosts can receive up to $500 to offset the costs of a live show. Meanwhile, artists doing a virtual concert can receive $100 for marketing.
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The subsidy can also be used for a variety of other entertainment other than music, such as theatre. The ‘Back to Live’ program was launched late last summer in the United States. But now, with the expansion, Side Door is offering it worldwide.
“The demand from Canadians and other hosts in the world has come up because they had seen the U.S. program-so we decided to open it up,” says Side Door co-founder Laura Simpson.
“We’re still seeing some instances where getting back in the habit of booking shows is still a bit of a hill to climb for lots of different hosts and artists. We’re just trying to make it as easy as possible to try doing it with Side Door.”
Even before the pandemic started, encouraging people to get back to the good ole days of constant live music has been at the heart of Side Door’s existence.
Simpson and Juno award-winner Dan Mangan launched the company in 2017. The site acts as a conduit between local artists and venues. But Side Door envisions any open space, indoors or outdoors, big, or small, as a venue.
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Sure, it can be a club or concert hall, but it could also be your backyard or even an open field on a farm.
It harkens back to the decades before the internet and music downloads when young rock bands starting out like Green Day would tour the world in a van, playing all venues just for gas and food money.
Side Door currently has thousands of artists and venues signed up on their website, and it is growing daily. Earlier this year, the company received $3-million in new investment and is receiving help from ACOA for their Back to Live program.
The initial USA version of “Back to Live,” has also increased Side Door’s visibility in that country. Ever since launching that subsidy a few months ago, they have doubled the number of shows they’ve helped curate in that country.
“We got some really interesting feedback from certain areas, like in Denver and Los Angeles where the media response and the host response said we are one of the solutions to get back into the habit of booking shows,” says Simpson.
Venues have found a good use for the money being offered by Side Door. After all, it’s not cheap to prepare a space for live music, whether it’s renting equipment, paying staff, or guaranteeing payment for the artists themselves.
“We have an artist that is going on tour and using the back to live program to entice hosts to book him for the tour.”
For Simpson, who has had a lifelong passion for live music, she is excited that the company she founded is now helping to reignite the spark for concerts in the post-pandemic world.
“We’re seeing capacities open up, we’re seeing the ability for people to book shows and go on tour, and it’s really exciting for us to be able to continue alongside in whatever way people want to make a show,” she says.
“We want to be part of the stimulus; we want to be part of the return.”
To be eligible, applications must be submitted by December 31, 2021 with the show taking place prior to June 30, 2022.
Derek Montague is a Huddle reporter in Halifax. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].