Anywhere you go, gas is about $4.20 per gallon. The increase in prices is impacting everyone including our local bands and artists who were just starting to recover from the pandemic.
The Lincoln Theater is home to hundreds of bands excited to get back on stage after a long last two years, but high gas prices are making it difficult for concertgoers who don’t live nearby to get there.
Donovan Harrison is the singer for the band Duck. He said they make money from sales, if no one shows up they don’t get paid.
Which is also a loss for venues.
“It’s unfortunate because with the gas prices tightening up people will have to get to a point where ‘do I wanna spend this money on gas or do I want to save this money put it somewhere I know I’ll be able to use it properly?'” said Harrison
John Haburay works the door at Lincoln Theater. He interacts with dozens of bands and said high gas prices could be another set back for the music industry.
“We do well when we sell liquor and beer, that’s the upside for us,” said Haburay. “”They are musicians, they’ll do what they have to do but they don’t make a lot of money to begin with.”
Duck will start traveling for gigs in a couple weeks. Sometimes they use rideshare to carry all their equipment.
Lately, he said prices are not affordable.
“As you can see this is stuff that we love this is what we do. It’s our bread and butter,” said Donovan. “It’s very important to support a local artist we take a lot of time to prepare and get the shows going.”
It really is a tough situation for musicians. For many of them, these shows are their only source of income.
Source: https://www.wral.com/rising-gas-prices-affecting-local-bands-artists/20183338/
