ABSTRACT
The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly demonstrated that some parts of the music sector are more resilient to crises than others. Future thinking and scenario building may be able to strengthen the anticipatory capacity—and therefore resilience—of the sector. This chapter discusses whether and how music sector professionals conceptualise such scenarios. Drawing on 27 interviews with Dutch music industry professionals, we found the following. First, in pre-pandemic times, future scenarios were mainly inward looking, focusing on one’s own organisation and position. Second, we discovered that during the COVID-19 pandemic this perspective appeared to change both in terms of direction (stop/shift, continue, pivot) and in reflexivity, leading to more awareness, focus, and introspection. Third, when participants were asked to envision key drivers shaping the future of the sector, more outward-looking scenarios with a focus on environmental, social, and economic sustainability emerged. Fourth, the least ideal scenarios included a loss of independence, rampant financialisation of the sector, a lack of societal valuation, and the threat of a monocultural music sector. Our findings indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic caused a shift in thinking about the future from an inward-looking to a more outward-looking perspective, and from concrete scenarios about organisational efficiency and optimalisation to broader, less tangible scenarios about inclusivity, diversity, fair pay, and environmental sustainability. This shift indicates the potential for a broader, more pro-active thinking about the future of the music sector, which can be aligned with adaptive resilience theory.
