A Christchurch live music company is broadcasting sets from overseas artists on its Facebook page for free during the lockdown.
Sub180, which is run by Christchurch residents Christy Kimble and Jamie Moir, was started in 2018. It was hosting drum and bass and electronic music concerts across New Zealand featuring international and local artists before the lockdown began.
However, being stuck inside has not stopped Sub180 from keeping residents from Christchurch and across the world entertained.
Said Mr Kimble: "People were bored and me and my business partner Jamie were as well and thinking what can we do to give people something to get excited about [and] keep what we do going.
"We saw a few of the live streams that were happening in the UK and DJs doing their own [live streams]. But the UK DJs were doing them at night in the UK, so New Zealanders couldn't watch them.
"So we of thought it would be really cool to ask a lot of our UK international DJ friends if they'd be willing to do one in their morning, so for our night time," he said.
Since the start of the lockdown, Mr Kimble said Sub180 has live streamed 12 live sets on its Facebook page by artists including Ben Snow, JAPPA and Banner.
He said every set is opened by a New Zealand artist.
Mr Kimble said: "They've been really fun. People have been putting in lots of comments, we've been getting between 10,000 and 20,000 viewers every time and lots of people having lots of laughs and lots of funny comments.
"You can watch live while people make comments and engage with people and it's quite a social thing, I think. It [social media] is one of the few, if only forums right now where people are engaging with others," he said.
Broadcasting live music to the masses during the lockdown has been a great way to get people through it and give them a sense of normality, said Mr Kimble.
"Music's such an important thing for society. It provides people [with] a little escape and a fun thing to do and we've been doing [a live stream] every day.
"At 9pm everyone knows that there'll be another stream from an international artist and they have to wait until the stream to find out who it is, so people are starting to really look forward to it and think of it as something in their daily routine," said Mr Kimble.
To watch Sub180's live DJ sets visit: https://www.facebook.com/SUB180Ent/
