How will the coronavirus affect the entertainment industries? Let us count the ways.

Tours and festivals canceled or postponed. Large crowds banned by governments. Supply lines for things like merch disrupted. Hotels and airlines suffering. Production crews sidelined. Workers at music venues with nothing to do. Booze and food surpluses because no one is coming. Broadway is dark. Movie premieres delayed. Late night talk shows and game shows have either suspended production or are doing shows without audiences. Major league sports has suspended play.

The financial strain on the entertainment industries caused by the coronavirus is unprecedented. How so? Check out this from Music Industry Blog:

“The coronavirus is a global pandemic. Regardless of what its actual infection and mortality rates might be, it is already having seismic impacts on stock markets and consumer behaviour – the result of which might be to tip the global economy into recession. It is also creating the largest home working experiment in history. Even if coronavirus doesn’t tip us into recession, the next few months will see major disruption of consumer behaviour patterns with major implications for the entertainment industries. However, to introduce an element of calm into the hysteria, coronavirus appears to be following the s-curve (scroll down to chart). So although the data we are currently looking at is two weeks out of date (ie factoring in the incubation period) the early signs are that it tops out as a small minority of the population).

“In Q4 2019 MIDiA fielded questions to consumers about how they would change their leisure and entertainment spending if a recession took place and they had to reduce their overall expenditure. The full findings of this exclusive research will soon be published in a MIDiA report: Recession Impact | Cocooning Will Protect Entertainment Spend (the latest in our series of Recession Impact reports). Here are a few highlights and how they relate to the current coronavirus spread.”

Keep reading here.