Welcome to Axios Recap. I'm Naomi Shaven and I'm filling in for Dan this week. Today is Friday, August 14th. Retail spending last month was up, Auckland, New Zealand is locked down, and we're focused on how touring musicians are getting by.

This year has been devastating for the live music industry.

An April estimate from trade publication, Polestar, projected that the industry stood to lose

nearly $9 billion if, quote, the rest of 2020 were to remain dark.

It's August, and 2020 seems sure to remain dark. At this point,

it's unclear when or if concerts could come back even in 2021. We explored the ramifications

of this for independent music venues in a previous show with Senator Amy Klobuchar, who co-sponsored a bill aimed at

helping those venues survive. But touring musicians and their crews face a really difficult

situation too. Some might qualify for certain unemployment benefits. They can sell merch and

lean on revenue from streaming. But it's really not the same.

Touring is a critical revenue stream for many artists.

Musician Marissa DeBese told Vulture earlier this year

that when her tour was canceled,

her band lost all of the income that they expected to live off of for six months.

Bassist Johnny Richardson told MarketWatch that 90% of his income comes from playing live.

Of course, not playing live and not creating music aren't the same thing, and a lot of artists

are still writing and releasing music and finding ways to share it with fans online.

The UK-based band Glass Animals released an album this week,

complemented by an interactive website that looks like a Windows 98 desktop,

a number of music videos, and a text message platform

so that fans can connect with the band members.

To get a sense of what it's like to release an album into this environment, we're joined

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