It’s already come to our attention especially people in Bandung that Saung Angklung Udjo will stop operating in January 2021 because they couldn’t make enough money. Saung Angklung Udjo used to have 2000 visitors per day before pandemic, and now decreased to only 20 visitors per day. They already laid off more than 90% of their employees.

Venue-based industries are the most affected by this pandemic. Saung Angklung Udjo main visitors are mostly students and tourists, during this lockdown the activity from those two categories are restricted due to social distancing.

Recently there’s a campaign on Kitabisa.com to save Saung Angklung Udjo, you can donate too by clicking the link. But I think this donation wouldn’t last for long and don’t get me wrong, think about it, we are still in a pandemic, the situation hasn’t been normal and it will never go back to that normal, if by normal you would refer to the situation before the pandemic. Our financial status is still not stable, people still need money, and most people don’t have any money. If they try to run another donation campaign, I think the money wouldn’t be as much as this current campaign. I still need money to survive too.

Also this pandemic has changed our behaviour, it changed the way we buy things, changed the way we travel, we become more cashless, and we are in demand with digital activity, because we try to reduce our interaction with other people. So digital is the key here. For me I found it very interesting how the industry runs and rework during this pandemic. A lot of people losing their jobs, lose their money, and on the other hand some people earn more money, take a look at Joe Rogan experience podcast, in May 2020 he signed an exclusive contract with Spotify. Well from my stupid perspective that former Fear Factor host is making huge cash in this pandemic, another example is Apple announced the new iPhone 12 series, the new macbook with M1 chip and the number people buying those products is not small.

Then I started thinking, which is a very rare activity for me, that the entertainment industry or creative industry is not dead, but instead it shifted to digital consumption. You can read the article about digital consumption after covid here and here. Some proven facts that people activity in digital media increased are, number one students learning through video meeting, the number of podcast is increased I make my own podcast too during this pandemic with some of my friends, synchronizefest went live streaming last year and I assume it went well, I don’t know the metrics but most of my friends they were updating their instagram stories watching synchronize fest from their device.

So enough talking, my ideas to save Saung Angklung Udjo is to shift their linear business to digital. Here are some of my stupid ideas.

1. Live stream concert. They can have a live stream concert like synchronizefest did and perhaps collaborating with famous musicians.
2. Virtual tour. Set up a virtual tour that can guide the visitors through the venue of Saung Angklung Udjo with traditional music in the background and some interactive media where visitors can learn about history about angklung.
3. Online courses. Similar to skillshare and other online courses, perhaps they can teach how to play Angklung via an online platform.
4. Selling merch. Well this is the standard one.

Of course it’s not easy to shift into digital media, and it’s not cheap. Maybe they can find an investor that would interested with those ideas or use some of the money from kitabisa campaign, I don’t know I’m just throwing out some stupid ideas. At least shifting to digital media can create new job opportunities and keep Saung Angklung Udjo running for a period of time.

So that’s my stupid ass ideas on how to save Saung Angklung Udjo.

Thanks for reading.