The live performance publisher Pop-Up Magazine, whose on-stage storytelling spanned reported narratives, personal essays and spoken-word poetry since its launch in 2009, announced Wednesday that it has shuttered its business. At least 18 staff were affected by the closure.
“It’s been a gift to do this kind of work, collaborate with our extended crew and hear from thousands and thousands of people that Pop-Up Magazine has moved them in some profound way,” co-founder Chas Edwards told Adweek.
The publisher generated revenue by touring the country and hosting ticketed shows accompanied by sponsorship messages, in addition to hosting private, custom performances for clients like Arnold Ventures and Zendesk.
When the pandemic struck, it presented an existential threat to the Pop-Up Magazine business model. The publisher responded with a series of inventive pivots, including a $70 issue in a box in December 2020 and a sidewalk issue in the summer of 2021.
The publisher returned to on-stage performances in November 2021, and last fall Pop-Up Magazine debuted its love stories edition, a series of performances that prioritized disability access with underwriting from Google.
These efforts, combined with the return of live performances, allowed the publisher to weather the worst of the pandemic, but ultimately failed to sustain the company as it returned to financial stability.
“The pandemic was devastating to our business,” the publisher said in an explanatory note. “We worked hard, and came up with new things we could create and new ways to generate revenue. Live audiences were starting to return. A profitable, self-sustaining future was in sight. But we don’t have enough money in the bank to make it.”
The publisher sought additional investment to bridge the financial gap created by the pandemic, but those conversations ran aground last fall when the economic downturn accelerated, according to the note.
Pop-Up Magazine operated under the umbrella of Pop-Up Productions until October 2020, when the Emerson Collective, the organization founded by the billionaire investor Laurene Powell Jobs, announced it was severing ties with the parent company. The news led to the closure of California Sunday, an award-winning publisher that was also a part of Pop-Up Productions.
The shutting of Pop-Up Magazine represents the latest in a series of staff cuts, outlet closures and austerity measures hitting the media industry. Lingering economic uncertainty has led marketers to pause and reduce advertising spend, which has forced ad-reliant publishers to trim expenses in the face of decreasing revenue.
Pop-Up Magazine was a highly original concept, one whose success presaged publishers’ larger embrace of live events as a meaningful line of business. Its closure—whether technically a casualty of the pandemic or the economic downturn—marks a blow to the creative capacity of the industry.
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