Last Saturday, I went to my first metalcore show. It was everything I expected it to be, with seizure-inducing strobe lights flashing in the background, long-haired dudes headbanging onstage, and thousands of fans alongside me passionately emoting throughout the entire set. But this show wasn’t like most others I had experienced before: Instead of getting my eardrums blown out in a sweaty club, I was sitting in my living room, staring at a 12-inch laptop screen.

The concert was Code Orange’s release show for their latest album, Underneath. In the wake of ongoing coronavirus-related concerns, the Pittsburgh band decided to broadcast their scheduled hometown gig for fans on the livestreaming platform Twitch instead of performing to an in-person audience. I couldn’t actually see any of the fans who were also tuned in but, thanks to the constant stream of emojis filling up the stream’s chat forum, I could definitely feel their presence.

There’s nothing quite like the tribal experience of going out to a venue and singing your favorite song alongside thousands of strangers. But as the COVID-19 outbreak continues to spread globally, it will quickly become more common for music fans around the world to stay in for shows. In a matter of weeks, the global concert industry has all but come to a standstill, leading to hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of ticket-sales losses. The world’s two largest concert promoters, Live Nation and AEG, have recommended postponing all U.S. tours at least until the end of March, while many music festivals have been cancelled or postponed. And just yesterday, President Trump issued new guidelines that included avoiding gatherings of more than 10 people—a threshold that takes almost every kind of traditional concert off the table.

The effect of these losses on artists, promoters, and other behind-the-scenes industry workers who rely more than ever on touring to make ends meet isn’t just financial; concerts are also highly emotional, often cathartic experiences that are essential for strengthening the bonds between artists and their fans.

Livestreaming is the closest digital analog to an in-person show, and now artists of all sizes are racing to organize virtual events for their fans. At 4 p.m. EST today (March 17), for instance, John Legend will perform a set on his Instagram Live, and a new electronic music collective NeuroDungeon will host a virtual party on Twitch and in the avatar-chat app Club Cooee. In response to Spain’s current lockdown, the Cuarentena Fest is featuring more than 50 artists and bands livestreaming performances from their homes on YouTube through March 27. Other artists like British punk singer-songwriter Frank Turner, Miami dance duo Afrobeta, and Houston rapper Fat Tony are also streaming their own shows on platforms like YouTube and Facebook throughout the week. The deluge of activity has even inspired several attempts at making curated, virtual event listings for fans to sift through.

The normalization of livestreaming could be game-changing for the music business. One of brick-and-mortar touring’s biggest challenges is that, by nature, it’s difficult to scale. And unlike passive income streams such as music sales and streaming, the only way for artists to make money touring is by doing more work. The lifestyle that results—endless days and nights in planes, tour buses, and hotel rooms—can end up feeling unsustainable for many artists, let alone for the planet.

In contrast, livestreaming has the potential to scale concerts to the same level as recorded music: The biggest artists can reach hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of viewers around the world with a single show. It’s also much easier for fans to jump from one show to the next in a virtual environment and to build their own self-directed “lineups” in a given day or week based on their own interests.