Save Our Scene: Donate
Various online resources have sprung up in the wake of cancellations currently decimating the live music sector. We’ve compiled them here.
Support the venues, promoters and workers
• Barcelona party MARICAS has launched an online content platform to support independent queer artists. There’s a different schedule each day, with activities including livestreams, production workshops and drag makeup tutorials. Donations are welcome.
• Bridges For Music, the South African musical academy originally opened in collaboration with Resident Advisor, is soliciting donations after all their fundraising events were cancelled. The money will go towards over 100 students affected by the lockdown.
• Berlin club ://about blank has set up a fundraiser to help see it through the crisis and to go towards “paying the standard wage to all employees without income from events.”
• Chicago’s Gramaphone Records was forced to close its doors and now has a fund to keep the store afloat in the meantime.
• More club fundraisers: Edinburgh’s Sneaky Pete’s; Copenhagen’s Ved Siden Af and Culture Box; Berlin’s Paloma, Salon Zur Wilden Renate, Anomalie Art Club, Rummelsbucht and Acud Macht Neu; Munich’s Rote Sonne; Augsburg’s City Club; Utrecht’s BASIS; and London’s Village Underground. New York venues Market Hotel, Elsewhere, House Of Yes, National Sawdust and Good Room have set up fundraisers. (The latter is directing support towards merch on its Bandcamp page, which will go towards covering staff payroll and fixed costs.) LA venue Zebulon has also set up a fund for employees and necessities, as well as Detroit’s Tangent Gallery. Chapel Hill, North Carolina, club Nightlight—a hub of sorts for the Atlantic coast underground—has also set up a GoFundMe.
• The Lot Radio has launched a GoFundMe to raise money to cover the wages of its kiosk cafe staff while its been forced to close.
• London’s Dalston Superstore has created a Crowdfunder specifically to help “our freelance community of DJs, hosts, designers, dancers, drag artists, security and others who have lost their main source of income due to the impacts of COVID-19.”
• Leipzig venues have joined together to create a solidarity ticket. Find more info and support by buying a Club-Soliticket here.
• Manchester and Salford venues, promoters and collectives—including Soup Kitchen, Partisan and Band On The Wall—have started their own #SaveOurScene initiative. They’ve launched a crowdfunding campaign to support workers in the scene who are now out of the job due to the pandemic. Learn more via their Facebook page.
• RVNG Intl’s New York record store Commend NYC has begun fielding donations via a GoFundMe page to help support the staff of their Lower East Side storefront.
• Russian label and collective GOST ZVUK have launched a Patreon.
• New York’s Jupiter Disco is accepting donations on Buy Me a Coffee, where you can “tip” staff to hold them over the next few months.
• Prague venue Ankali has created an event for the Antivirus A weekender set for a TBD date “as soon as the crisis is over.” Those not in the area are also encouraged (if they’re able) to purchase a ticket to support the club: “By buying a ticket to a weekender (without a set date) you can immediately supply us with a much needed serum, thus supporting Ankali, its staff and local artists during the time of crisis.”
• New York venue Mood Ring is selling gift cards online which will be redeemable once the club reopens. A portion of the proceed sales will be go towards staff.
• London club The Cause posted a statement asking those who are financially able to consider not collecting refunds for cancelled gigs, especially those put on by independent promoters and venues. “The industry is taking a big hit at the moment, please be gentle and thoughtful over this,” the statement reads. “Postponement, rather than refunds is the only logical option for many promoters in order to survive this. Your £15 ticket refund will likely not affect you, but in mass numbers refunded will kill our scene.” They join many in the community making similar suggestions.
• New York club Bossa Nova Civic Club has asked those in “a state of financial stability” to consider donating directly to their staff via Venmo.
Support independent media
• New York publication and events company AdHoc has created a relief fund for their employees. Donate here.
• The bulk of Crack magazine’s advertising revenue comes from events and festivals, most of which have been cancelled. Learn more on how to help the independent publication stay afloat here.
• Attack magazine has launched a fundraiser for the World Health Organisation’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.
Helping communities
• In Berlin, numerous collectives and queer parties, including aequa, Berlin Strippers’ Collective, DOGMA, Host Aware, Lecken, POLY. Artists, Radiant Love, Room 4 Resistance, TS Raver and TUF, are co-organising a new initiative called Berlin Collective Action, which has set up the Berlin Collective Action: Nightlife Emergency Fund to help the “BIPOC, queer, trans and non-binary people, sex workers, non-EU migrants, freelancers and other marginalised folks for whom Berlin nightlife is not just a source of income, it is their home.” The goal is €100,000.
• London’s XOYO has launched a crowdfunding campaign #ClubForOurCarers to raise money for NHS workers. In return for donations, they’ll share live sets from the archives, exclusive live streams, exclusive tracks and more.
• Ukraine magazine TIGHT has tips and bullet points on how to support that country’s dance music community.
• In Seattle, the US city hit hardest by the pandemic, a GoFundMe campaign has been set up to support the artist community. The target is $100,000. Priority will go to “BIPOC artists, transgender and non-binary artists and disabled artists—but we will try to help as many artists with need in Seattle as we can.”
• In San Francisco, the SF Queer Nightlife Fund has been established to “provide financial relief to workers in the nightlife industry for as long as the current crisis continues.” You can donate or apply for aid over at their website.
• Two Italian festivals, Polifonic and VIVA, have started a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for the ongoing medical effort in Puglia. The money will go towards hospitals and home support for the elderly and infirm.
More ways to help: offer and receive support, buy music and merch, attend virtual events.
Read our feature to hear from people across the dance music community about how COVID-19 is affecting them. Plus, here are some ideas on what to watch, read and do at home while self-isolating.
We will continue updating this post as more resources appear. Please email [email protected] with any suggestions.
Find the latest COVID-19 statistics on this interactive map created by Johns Hopkins University.
