Dr. Robert Murphy, an infectious disease researcher and the executive director of Northwestern University’s Institute for Global Health, shared some advice with the Vulture about going to concerts:

1. Stay away from crowds, stay a couple of feet from other people, don't shake hands, stay away from people who are coughing
2. Choose small venues - less than 50 people
3. Seated shows are safer
4. Wash your hands and try not to touch your face
5. Use hand sanitizers frequently
6. Avoid buying drinks, merchandise is fine

Rage Against the Machine have postponed the first leg of their upcoming reunion tour (March 26 - May 20) due to concerns over the coronavirus; they plan to start playing May 23rd. Billie Eilish has postponed her March US dates - the postponement arrives after Live Nation and AEG, two of the world’s biggest concert promoters, decided to halt all large-scale tours until April due to the pandemic. Canadian Juno Awards have cancelled all 2020 programming. After New York State has banned gatherings of 500 people or more due to the coronavirus pandemic, some NYC venues are temporarily closing their doors, and postponing events. JamFest in Atlanta on April 5, with Taylor Swift headlining, has been cancelled. All events related to this year's LA Pride have been postponed, although it takes place in three months from now, in June. Also, there's American bands having trouble going home from the EU since the US have posed travel restrictions. But, not everything has been cancelled - Kendrick Lamar has been added as Glastonbury headliner, Tool still plan to play the US this March (just one show cancelled so far), mewithoutYou have just announced their farewell tour...

The music industry could lose as much as $5 billion - the same amount as the projected loss for the film industry - over cancellations and postponements due to coronavirus, analyst Kristen Jaconi, director of the Risk Management program at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, said. Kevin Kennedy, an industry analyst at IBISWorld, told the Rolling Stone that - “overall, the negative economic impact of the virus will be especially severe for smaller-scale operators that cannot effectively manage the risk".

We need to stop pretending that we’re not trying to make a living. We need to make it OK to ask music lovers to support the music they love, directly. By buying an album in a physical or digital format, not just streaming (but stream it too!), the artist is more likely to see direct […]

Lockdowns and quarantines caused by coronavirus mean we’re in uncharted territory in a $54 billion global music industry. "There’s going to be immediate financial loss for bands" - on one side, as one promoter tells the NME, and on the other - "the anxiety of fans as to whether they’ll get sick at [shows]". Ticket sales are already suffering, with promoters pointing to a downturn in all regions of Europe, with the exception of Germany, festivals are getting cancelled, some giving refunds, some offering opportunity to use tickets in subsequent fests. Promotors are hoping that the warmer weather will clear the virus, until then some of the live music scene will surely end up online.

"If public gatherings are limited to the size of the average cheese rolling contest and all big shows are banned – suddenly the nation will have to flock to their local pubs and independent venues for their monster weekenders, exposing themselves to a whole new strain of underground brilliance" - Mark, My Words sees a light at the end of the corona-tunnel. Actually, two lights: "With an unexpected year off touring and every album-then-tour cycle in the world broken, we’ll see every single major act confined to their home studios meaning a culture-wide torrent of high profile new albums".

This year’s Coachella, originally set for the first two weekends in April, will now take place in October (9.-11.10 and 16.-18.10.), the Verge reports. Additionally, festival organizer Goldenvoice announced that the country music festival Stagecoach, which takes place at the same venue as Coachella in Indio, California, is also being rescheduled to October (24.-26.4. to 23.-25.10.). There is no word if the festivals will have the same lineups. Unlike SXSW and Ultra festivals, Coachella and Stagecoach will offer ticketholders refunds if they can’t attend.

For the creative sectors, right now, there is a big emerging opportunity in people sitting at home, being bored out of their minds - Music x Tech x Future says in an analysis of coronavirus ramifications. Oline channels with visible music experiences on Twitch and YouTube are going to see a jump in viewers; we’ll see musicians recording more video content; some festivals will try to generate digital revenue in some similar form; younger startups will be making social music experiences. Not everybody has cancelled their gigs - Israeli artist Kosha Dillz is still going to SXSW, as he wrote for Variety. When he returns to Israel, he’ll need to quarantine himself for 14 days.

Miley Cyrus has called off a trip to Australia, where she was due to headline a bushfire benefit concert on Friday, Sydney Morning Herald reports. Two Madonna shows in Paris have been cancelled after the French government banned gatherings of more than 1,000 people, Roling Stone reports. Pearl Jam have postponed their US and Canada tour, saying the risk "is simply too high for our comfort level", but their summer tour in Europe will carry on for now, Variety reports. Bloomberg reports the Coachella music festival in California - due to take place in April - will be put back to October.

The spring Texas festival means (financially) autumn for some bands. SXSW is an opportunity for thousands of young musicians to showcase their work to US audiences for the first time. Many build album promotion campaigns and other US tour dates around their festival visit to make it as cost-effective as possible, with most having self-funded or crowdsourced money to finance their trip. NME talked to some British musicians who were about to travel to the US - Welsh band Campfire Social has spent months planning the visit to Austin, losing almost £4500 with the cancellation of the festival, mostly on travel and visa costs. American bands are hit financially too - Star Tribune reports about Minnesota bands Humbird, the Gully Boys, the Bad Man, and Heart Bones who are going to lose hundreds of dollars, a blow for an indie-band. The festival is cancelled, but some venues intend to go ahead as planned with shows they booked, the LA Times reports.

In a Friday afternoon (3/6) press conference, Austin mayor Steve Adler said that the 2020 edition of Austin’s SXSW is cancelled due to the coronavirus, the Texas Tribune reports. "We are devastated to share this news with you. 'The show must go on' is in our DNA, and this is the first time in 34 years that the March event will not take place" - SXSW shared in a statement, adding - "we are exploring options to reschedule the event and are working to provide a virtual SXSW online experience as soon as possible". SXSW’s 2020 edition was to happen from March 13-22.

Korn made their own surgical masks in the shadow of coronavirus-mania - and they already sold out. The masks were on Korn's online webstore for $10 (usually they are sold as a 20-pack for less than $20) - and more is coming, for $11. These masks protect from… absolutely nothing. They're not actual, medically-approved masks. They're merchandise. The masks are of more use to those who are actually carrying the virus, since it can prevent the spread of the germs when they cough - Loudwire makes sense of the situation.

Beastie Boys, Ozzy Osbourne and Nine Inch Nails have cancelled their appearance at South By Southwest (SXSW) Festival 2020 in Austin, Texas due to coronavirus concerns, Kerrang reports. They were set to participate in the festival’s film section. The artists join major companies such as Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon Studios, TikTok, Mashable and Intel, that have pulled out of SXSW due to health concerns. SXSW will screen employees and volunteers for signs of illness before they are cleared to work at the festival, and add handwashing stations and hand sanitizer throughout. SXSW begins officially on March 16.

While the coronavirus has taken a big toll on the arts world in terms of closed venues and canceled events, it has also spurred plenty of show-must-go-on creativity in some of the hardest-hit areas, as performers and organizations have tried to adapt to trying circumstances, playing in front of - a camera, streamed online, like Quartetto Dafne string quartet playing Beethoven and Borodin in La Fenice opera house in Venice on Monday. New York Times has the encouraging story.

The UK's health ministry has suggested that in order to prevent the spread of coronavirus, people should wash their hands while singing 'Happy Birthday' – twice – in order to ensure the operation lasts the recommended 20 seconds. Freelance journalist Jen Monnier has some other suggestions, like Dolly Parton's 'Jolene' - easy to sing, fun, only 25 words long, and eight of them are "Jolene"!

The 2020 installment of Ultra Music Festival in Miami has been canceled due to concerns over the coronavirus, Miami Herald reports. City officials encouraged organizers to postpone the event. The annual electronic music festival was supposed to take place at Miami’s Bayfront Park between March 20th and 22nd, with an expected daily attendance of over 55,000 people. The scheduled lineup included Major Lazer, Flume, Zedd, Gesaffelstien, David Guetta, Afrojack, and DJ Snake, among others.

An awful lot of the Austin economy depends on the festival, and its cancelation would affect a lot more than just the attendees, Texas Monthly argues in favor of going ahead with plans to hold South by Southwest this year (25,000 people have signed a petition to cancel it). People that depend on SXSW are - "caterers, pedicabbers, ride-hailing drivers, bartenders and servers, tech crew and security staff, and countless others who rely on SXSW as a windfall to pay off bills and get their heads above water each year. A whole host of bars and restaurants are able to weather the slow winter months because they know that, come March, rental fees and prepaid bar tabs will keep them afloat. Hotels and pizza places and portable-toilet rental companies have developed alongside SXSW".

Avril Lavigne has canceled her Asian tour due to coronavirus fears - it was set to begin on April 23, and it would have included stops in China, Japan, Philippines and Taiwan. Canadian rock group Wolf Parade canceled their European and U.K. dates, Billboard reports. Ultra Abu Dhabi has also been canceled in the shadow of coronavirus. According to EDM Tunes, many other events in the UAE are revising their outlooks. Thousands of people have signed a petition to have SXSW canceled, but the organizers of Austin-Texas hipster-fest said the show will go on. The Outline has a message for them: "The organizers of SXSW have a chance to be double heroes: not only could they possibly save lives by canceling their event, but they could save us all the inanity of hearing about it".

Green Day have postponed their scheduled tour of Asia, which was due to kick early next month, amid fears of coronavirus, Billboard reports. BTS canceled several shows in their native South Korea due to the alarming spread of coronavirus, while New Order announced they’d put their upcoming shows in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan “on hold” for the time being.

One of the biggest annual K-pop concerts in the U.S., The Korea Times Music Festival scheduled for April 25 at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles has been postponed due to fears over coronavirus, CBS LA reports. The annual musical festival, which is in its 18th year, had already announced the likes of K-pop girl group MOMOLAND, solo singer and former Wanna One member Ha Sungwoon and rock band No Brain. Coronavirus also led to cancellation of the Korean Music Awards and Stormzy has postponed tour dates in Asia, as NME reported.

Concert promoter and ticketing company Live Nation shares fell 8% on Monday, over fears the coronavirus is not contained, Billboard reports. Ryman Hospitality - the owner of Grand Ole Opry and Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium - was down 5.8%. The Madison Square Garden Company fell by 2.4%.

There hasn’t been a live music show in China since late January due to, coronavirus, enter - live-streaming. China’s musicians and promoters are organizing “bedroom music festivals” and live-streamed club nights. Initially, an idea hatched by VOX Livehouse, the legendary punk rock dive located in Wuhan, the city at the heart of the COVID-19 outbreak, the “live-streamed music festival” is now a nationwide craze, and genre, too, is no barrier. Options range from pop and hardcore punk to techno and experimental improvisation. What it means on a deeper level remains to be seen, but for now, these events allow China’s so-called “anti-social generation” to redefine sociality their way.

Streaming was already a popular hangout for Chinese musicians and artists across the region, and now with a general shutdown of public space with coronavirus online interaction is becoming essential, because people are effectively all isolated at home. Every streaming platform is full of music across genres, that includes major virtual nightclub-style events, one of which reportedly reached millions of viewers.