Since the beginning of the pandemic, online music retailer Bandcamp has graciously waived its fees on the first Friday of every month, allowing nearly 100% of all sales to go to artists and labels — providing a rare opportunity to maximize the amount of that money that goes to artists. It is an admirable move for a company that is itself independent.
According to a post earlier this week, the nine Bandcamp Fridays have brought in $40 million to artist and labels this year, from 800,000 fans, and the company plans to continue the practice next year.
The post, from cofounder and CEO Ethan Diamond, follows in full:
“On the first Friday of every month since March, we’ve waived our revenue share to help support the many artists who have seen their livelihoods disrupted by the pandemic. Over the course of these nine days, fans paid artists and labels $40 million dollars, helping cover rents, mortgages, groceries, medications, and much more. If you’re among the nearly 800,000 fans who participated, thank you.
“Although vaccines are starting to roll out, it will likely be several months before live performance revenue starts to return. So we’re going to continue doing Bandcamp Fridays in 2021, on February 5th, March 5th, April 2nd, and May 7th. As always, isitbandcampfriday.com has the details.
“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!”