(Hypebot) — Bandcamp will continue its popular Bandcamp Friday promotion, which supports independent artists and labels, into 2023 after a brief hiatus.
On all Bandcamp Fridays, the company waives its commissions and fees.
Since launching at the start of the pandemic in March of 2020, fans have spent more than $91 million dollars during the 26 Bandcamp Fridays that followed. “Participation has remained consistently high,” writes Bandcamp, “with each Bandcamp Friday generating millions of dollars of extra income for artists and labels.”
In October, Bandcamp relaunched the popular indie music and merch sales promotion after a three-month hiatus and Friday, December 2nd was the last announced Bandcamp Friday.
The next Bandcamp Friday will be February 3rd, and the popular indie music destination promises to “share dates for the rest of the year soon.”
Is 2023 the year that Epic Games changes Bandcamp?
In March of 2022, Epic Games acquired Bandcamp. The gaming giant and creator of Fortnite said then that it would make Bandcamp part of a plan “to build out a creator marketplace ecosystem for content, technology, games, art, music, and more.”
The sale worried many in the independent music community who rely on Bandcamp. But so far, there have been no public changes at Bandcamp, and Epic has not built out the promised creator marketplace ecosystem.
A major factor in the delay is likely Epic and Bandcamp’s ongoing battle with Apple and Google over app store restrictions and 30% fees. Just the week, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney said that he was willing to take that fight all the way to the Supreme Court.
All that could change in 2023.
Bruce Houghton is the Founder and Editor of Hypebot and MusicThinkTank, a Senior Advisor at Bandsintown, President of the Skyline Artists Agency, and a professor for the Berklee College Of Music.
