Music Will Prevail: Without Audiences Music Industry Pros Find Niche in COVID Response Field
Sarah Slaton temporarily transitioned from a career in music to providing COVID response services during the pandemic when there were no more shows to play.
Photos and Story by Giles Clasen
FACING DEVASTATION
COVID-19 wasn’t the first time Sarah Slaton’s life was interrupted by illness. In 2009, not long after Slaton graduated college and moved to Denver, her mother was diagnosed with brain cancer. Slaton returned to Arkansas and cared for her mother, who passed away 14 months later.
“I felt so fucking lost without her,” Slaton said. “It was like the whole world was upside-down, and I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. I bought a one-way flight to Europe. I took off and went backpacking for a little bit.”
In time Slaton returned to Denver and started the band Edison as a tribute to her mother, even using a photo of her mom on the band’s first album.
“I just always wanted to pursue being a musician, and was always afraid to really go for it,” Slaton said. “Things changed, having her voice in the back of my head; I knew I had to just try.”
In 2018, Edison broke up and Slaton began her solo career. She had built momentum going into 2020 and had scheduled a national solo tour.
The coronavirus pandemic brought everything to a screeching halt for Slaton, as it did for many other Americans. Unlike some businesses during the pandemic, the music industry couldn’t continue at a limited capacity. Events were canceled, and concerts were put on hold. The revenue dried up, and Slaton had no choice but to start collecting unemployment insurance.
“It was devastating, financially,” Slaton said. “Between losing my job and having all of my shows canceled, I was really in a rough spot. I was really in a place of self-doubt last summer going into last fall.”
Slaton was used to pinching her pennies as a touring musician, but this was different. In December of 2020, Slaton found another break, of sorts, in the music industry. She took a job with a COVID-19 response team for Highline Medical Solutions, an offshoot of Highline Events Solutions.
FINDING A SOLUTION
Highline had been an experiential marketing company that produced music and sporting events around the world since the mid-1990s. But as was the case with so many, when COVID-19 hit, Highline lost all of its business, and the Highline Event Solutions business struggled to survive.
James Deighan, Highline’s managing partner and founder, said in the summer of 2020 the company had to furlough most of their 15 full-time staff and inform their 250 contractors around the country that there would be no work until the pandemic ended.
“It was devastating,” Deighan said. “It was very, very difficult. It was very sad, but at the same time, there was absolutely nothing I could do. I held on as long as I possibly could before telling employees we have had for 13 or 18 years.”
Deighan looked for any solution to keep his company going. He considered selling his house and even considered becoming a bartender again, a job he hadn’t done since the founding of Highline 26 years ago.
Highline did qualify for a Paycheck Protection Program loan from the federal government, which helped him keep his staff paid a bit longer, but it ultimately wasn’t enough.
“Come late July, early August, there wasn’t a dime left to spend on staff, let alone overhead,” Deighan said.
Just as Highline looked like it might fall, Deighan had an idea. A friend with experience in the medical industry told Deighan about the logistical complexities involved in testing Colorado’s population for COVID.
Highline had years of experience organizing large-scale events like the Winter X Games, Super Bowl Half Time Shows and Vail Snow Days. Deighan saw this as a great way to parlay that experience into a different type of enterprise.
In early fall of 2020, Deighan began applying for requests for proposals from the state of Colorado to manage and staff COVID testing sites. Highline Medical Solutions, a new wing of the Highline events business, was born.
“I was so excited,” Deighan said. “We kind of put the word out across the country, to the Highline family, to anyone that didn’t have work, to apply their very strong skill sets and help a serious need in fighting the pandemic.”
OPPORTUNITIES FOR PAID WORK
Deighan wasn’t the only individual in the music business excited to have paid work in a new industry.
“We lost not only our jobs but our identity this past year,” Stacy Wiseman said. “Not only are we working now, but we are helping the country open back up.”
A tour manager for A-list comedians and bands, Wiseman spent 14 years traveling around the world before the pandemic hit. She learned about the job opportunities with Highline through a Facebook group for music industry professionals. At the vaccine sites, Wiseman helps manage the administration side of the vaccination sites.
Wiseman said Highline has managed the sites extremely well because they applied the same efficiencies as those they used to produce events.
“This is a mini-festival,” Wiseman said. “We set it up like a tour production office because it works. We say put us in charge because we know how to do this work.”
Before working for Highline, Wiseman lived on $167 a week from unemployment. Her unemployment was interrupted on two different occasions because she was a victim of fraudulent claims.
“I’ve talked with friends [in the music industry] around the country who are really floored that this is what Denver is doing, hiring industry people,” Wiseman said. “Other individuals around the country haven’t had this option, haven’t been this lucky.”
Apdiela Pulido receives her second dose of the Pfizer vaccine from Laura Vanston at a vaccine site managed by Highline Medical Solutions. Highline had been primarily a music and events management firm prior to the pandemic. When live events were canceled due to the pandemic Highline transitioned into COVID response services.
WHATEVER COMES NEXT
After Sarah Slaton joined the Highline Medical Solutions team in late December, she got right to work in her new role. In no time, she was donning N95 respirators and helping with COVID testing.
Slaton learned quickly, despite having little medical experience in her background. She said the biggest demand on her team was helping to calm nerves for people scared of a virus they didn’t fully understand. She was also nervous about getting the virus and spreading it to the people she cared about.
“I wasn’t vaccinated the first couple of months that I was doing it,” Slaton said. “There were hundreds of people coming to the sites every day for tests, and quite a few people were positive. I’m not going to lie and tell you that I wasn’t anxious, but I knew that we were doing good work.”
To cope with the anxiety of the ever-present threat of the virus, Slaton was meticulous about cleanliness. She never went anywhere in public without a mask and used copious amounts of hand sanitizer.
Being on the road and living out of hotels as part of the COVID response felt a little like traveling as a musician, too. She even brought her guitar and a mobile recording studio to continue writing music.
“ I have written a lot of music in the past year,” Slaton said. “I don’t have a full album’s worth by any means, but I definitely have been writing a lot of music, and I’m figuring out what way I’m going to release it. I’m figuring out how I’m going to afford to get it all recorded.”
Slaton isn’t the only Denver musician utilizing the forced downtime to create new work.
Sam Krentzman said he has seen a lot of resiliency in the creative community this year. Krentzman, the founder of The Armory Denver, a music and recording venue, has been working on “When the Music Stops,” a documentary about the pandemic’s impact on the Colorado music scene.
“I actually think that’s the thing about the creative community. It’s not like they’re only able to be creative in a particular scenario,” Krentzman said. “Their creative energy transcends difficult scenarios. We actually saw a lot of people who couldn’t tour or play for audiences go to the studio and start recording. There are a lot of people getting ready for whatever comes next.”
Your Own Medicine performs at The Armory Denver as part of the Armory’s live streaming series. Live streaming concerts was an essential component in The Armory’s survival during the months of COVID.
REBUILDING THE INDUSTRY
But the damage to the Colorado music scene may be lasting and has gone beyond hurting musicians and companies that organize shows. Krentzman said thousands of trades people lost their incomes due to COVID.
Great shows require skilled sound board operators, lighting technicians, riggers, stage builders — even bartenders — to ensure they run smoothly. Some of these tradespeople left the industry completely in 2020, looking for other work. Some moved away from Colorado during the pandemic.
“I know steelworkers and riggers who moved to Florida and Texas building stadiums and stages,” Krentzman said. “Those states had fewer restrictions, so production moved. But [those workers] had to expose themselves to additional risks of COVID in those spaces, leaving the regulations of their home state for work elsewhere.”
Krentzman said The Armory Denver struggled to survive. The business only survived because of a grant, virtual shows, the support and generosity from the building’s owner, and Krentzman using his unemployment income to pay the business’s bills.
“This is a family affair,” Krentzman said. “It is a group of artists who built this place, and it took a lot of people to keep it going this past year.”
There is a chance that Colorado will have a lot of work rebuilding the music scene here. But the music industry is important to Colorado’s economic success. A recent study by Economists, Inc., an economic consulting firm, found that for every dollar generated by music activities, an additional 50 cents is created for adjacent businesses. The music industry supports 2.4 million jobs nationally. The total economy does well when the music industry is thriving.
“Everyone benefits from every stage of a musician’s development,” Krentzman said. “I just wish there were more direct investments in the creative arts in Colorado, both in industry development and also artistic development.”
Krentzman also said he thinks the live music industry will come back slower than other parts of the economy.
“We were the first to close and may be the last to open because you can’t really book a national tour,” Krentzman said. “Every state has different restrictions, so it is very difficult to book right now.”
The Colorado Music Relief Fund, managed by Redline Contemporary Art Center, has helped support individuals who work in the Colorado music industry, but the biggest thing someone can do to help bring live shows back to Colorado is to get vaccinated, Krentzman said.
“In my personal opinion, the vaccines are very important,” said Krentzman, who was vaccinated. “I feel a sense of personal responsibility for my own health and who I’m obligated to care for in my own life and business. There needs to be a sense of social responsibility to prevent the transmission of the disease and the development of new variants. We need to do as much as we can to keep people safe.
The more that people get vaccinated, the fewer [number of] people will die of COVID. I think that that’s a very good goal.”
If music events are attended by a mix of individuals who are both vaccinated and unvaccinated, concerts could become hotspots for the spread of the virus. Krentzman said if concerts are transmission sites there would likely be another shutdown of live music. A second shutdown could be a more devastating injury to the music industry and could be even more difficult to recover from.
Sarah Slaton, like other Denver musicians, has used the forced down time of the pandemic to write new music. She is optimistic that she can continue can build momentum as the economy safely reopens.
CREATING MOMENTUM
Slaton has already given up hope of reviving her national tour that had been scheduled for 2020. She was vaccinated due to her high risk of exposure while working for Highline and now feels safe playing live shows. However, Slaton said she will limit any touring to Colorado this year. She is hoping that the U.S. continues to open safely throughout 2021 and she can have momentum leading into 2022.
“I create momentum,” Slaton said. “That’s the reason I am where I am. Everything that I’ve ever done, anything that I’m super proud of, it’s because I worked at it. I’ll create momentum whatever year it is or whatever day it is.”
Slaton released two new songs in 2020, “Time to Go,” and “Get Up.” She has received a strong reception to both and is excited about the following she now has and hopes to expand it significantly over the next year.
“I feel like I’m still just trying to keep going, and keep getting up each day, and just loving the present moment as much as I can,” Slaton said. “I don’t know what I’m going to be doing in two or three months; I don’t know when this is going to end or when I can go back to playing music full-time. I just have to
remember that I’ll find my way eventually.” ■