“IT’S
IMPOSSIBLE
By Michael Raine
TO IMAGINE”
Behind the scenes as the Canadian music industry copes
with an unprecedented crisis
N
o one saw this coming. Not like this, at
least. Just two months is all it took for the
music industry to be turned on its head. On
Jan. 11 th , China reported its first COVID-19
death. On March 12 th , the Juno Awards were
cancelled at the last minute – just one in a
wave of cancellations that hit the industry like a tsunami.
For many in the Canadian music world, it seems, that was
the moment they knew Canada would not be miraculously
exempt from the pandemic’s fallout. As it has done to many
industries, COVID-19 has devastated the music world and
now everyone – quite literally every single person who makes
a living from music – is trying to figure out what lies ahead.
In late April, Canadian Musician spoke with five promi-
nent people in different segments of the Canadian music
industry – an artist and advocate, a manager, an agent, an
association head, and a label executive – to get a behind-
the-scenes snapshot of the crisis.
To paraphrase Hemingway, this crisis hit the music indus-
try slowly, then all at once. In early January were the first
reports of a novel coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China. On
Jan. 21 st , the U.S. had its first confirmed case in Washington
State, and on Jan. 25 th , Canada had its first presumed case.
Weeks then passed with a trickle of new cases. In late Febru-
ary, the dozen or so Canadian cases were all linked to travel
or contact with a family member who travelled. So, while
concerning, things seemed under control.
In the music industry, like in the general public, there
were flashbacks to the SARS outbreak of 2003, which infect-
ed 375 in Toronto, killing 44. Not to be crass, but that was
bad for business, especially for those involved in live events
in Toronto. But for the fortunate majority of Torontonians
and Canadians who were not personally impacted by SARS,
what they remember most is a free Rolling Stones concert.
38 C A N A D I A N M U S I C I A N
“The next day was just chaos and
everything changed”