Venues are shut down, and a recent headline in Rolling Stone simply reads, "The Concert Business Stands to Lose Billions Due to the Coronavirus." New sound technology, however, is offering a way forward.
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The musicians of Incubus hear themselves when playing live because their sound gets mixed properly and then sent directly to high fidelity audio devices they each wear in their ears.
"(The earphones) protect our hearing, allow us to do our job, because we can hear what we want to hear and what we need to hear," guitarist Mike Einziger said.
Einziger thought it would be cool to develop the same technology for fans, and the result is Mixhalo.
It allows music to be fed directly from the mixing board at any event directly to your cellphone using a proprietary Wi-Fi system.
"It's very promising and cool technology," said live music expert Dave Brooks, who is a senior correspondent at Billboard magazine. "It basically allows you to have a concert anywhere."
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What's cool became essential when summer concerts were canceled due to the pandemic.
"The entire live entertainment industry is trying to re-invent itself and try to figure out ways to provide safe entertainment for people," Einziger said.
Keith Urban staged a drive-in concert for health care workers near his home in Tennessee, using FM radio to broadcast to folks in the cars located in front of the stage. But situations like that lend themselves to the Mixhalo technology.
"It allows people to be in their perfectly socially distanced car pod and listen to pristine, sound board quality audio," said violinist Ann Marie Simpson-Einziger, Mike Einziger's wife and co-founder of Mixhalo. "Disruption always means there's a need for innovation."