Carine Zuber, programmer and director of the Moods club in Zurich (jazz, black and world music), ex-programmer of the Cully Jazz Festival and co-founder of the Cosmo Jazz Festival in Chamonix.
Zurich, July 2020
“I’m coming out of lockdown and thinking about what a live post-COVID concert is going to look like. Strangely enough, this social distancing which is also a distance with the music, a distance with the live experience of a concert, should be able to bring people closer to a concert in a club. I have the impression that they’ll feel less inclined to get lost in a mass of people listening to the same thing. And I hope that they will want more of the unexpected, more surprises and to be closer to others in an intimate context to live a real concert experience and discoveries.
As far as streaming is concerned, at Moods we have a paid streaming platform, moods.digital, where 70% of the subscription revenue goes to the artists. During the period of confinement, we had more income as people were stuckat home, but as soon as they were able to go out again, we went back to normal. I think people are fed up with the virtual, fed up with streaming. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t offer this experience, but in any case we shouldn’t flood the net with free music. Unfortunately, I notice that it’s often the musicians themselves who tend to want to put everything up for free, without filters, on all possible platforms to be as visible as possible, as often as possible. I think this is a mistake and that it saturates the market. In my opinion, the live experience is still something rare, something of quality that you have to pay for. Musicians should learn to distinguish between what can be used as promotion and put online for free, and what should be paid for because it’s of value, like a whole concert. Look at the audio or audio-visual platforms. People are willing to pay for a subscription to Spotify or Netflix. They’re also likely to subscribe to concerts. That’s the spirit with which we set up moods.digital and it’s what we’ve seen with our subscription formula. One thing’s for sure, I’m convinced that nothing, nothing will ever replace the experience of a real live concert and that’s a good thing.”
Still A-live! During this unprecedented period of confinement, the Show-me team has gone to meet musicians and cultural players to question them and take the pulse of what they’re thinking. What is or should be the status of the artist? What are possible remunerations? What evolution is possible after the crisis?
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