Indie music service waives its fees to benefit musicians on Friday

Following a day-long waiving of service fees in March, that saw musicians around the world receive one-hundred percent of all sales, independent digital music service Bandcamp is set to waive fees again on Friday May 1, as part of its efforts to help artists amid the Covid-19 crisis.

The service, popular among Irish musicians and artists for flexibility, user experience and an ethical approach to sharing revenue, generated $4.3 million (€3.96m) on music and merchandise sales worldwide on Friday March 20, dubbed #BandcampFriday on Twitter by music enthusiasts, while artists released new and archival material as part of the fundraising initiative.

The sales equalled over 800,000 items sold over the course of one day, versus only about 47,000 on an average Friday, according to US entertainment paper Variety.

“That’s more than 15 times our normal Friday, and at the peak, fans were buying 11 items per second,” the service said in a statement on its website.

Bandcamp, which allows users to stream and download music from a wide selection of independent bands and labels of all genres, acts as an alternative to the popular streaming platforms, offering artists an easy-to-use front-end for download sales in a range of formats, online mail order for merchandise, and subscription services.