Missed or Postponed Innovation? The Rise and Fall (and Rise?) of Live Streamed Music Events in Italy

During the pandemic emergency, the search for alternative solutions to the impossibility of performing live concerts gave a decisive boost to the offer of live streamed music gigs. Several platforms, including many newcomers, aimed to develop an innovative offer that could continue even after the pandemic, emphasizing the potential benefits of streaming live music in terms of audience development, widening of business and monetization opportunities for artists' creativity, possibility of experimenting with new types of performance and of public participation. Nonetheless, despite the expectations of most of the music industry professionals, once the pandemic emergency ended the offer of live streamed concerts by popular musicians drastically dropped, while many of these services confronted numerous problems that arrested or slowed down their development. Drawing primarily on interviews with live streaming platforms and live music professionals, the chapter reconstruct and analyze the trajectory of live streamed concerts in the Italian context, highlighting their pursuit of innovations, the discourses supporting their development and the criticalities deriving from transposing some aspects of the traditional live music business in the digital environment, while the foreseen development possibilities connect to the wider trend of the music sector to rely on consumer brands and tech giants.