Surreal VHS tape visuals painted the room when Evan Williams performed at Non Plus Ultra, a DIY venue tucked inside a Los Angeles warehouse. The space is covered with a collection of props and pop culture references, reflecting the multidisciplinary creativity of the artist collective that runs the venue.

For Williams, a junior majoring in music composition, performing live at venues like Non Plus Ultra is a fun experience that fosters community.

“There’s something about the atmosphere at these shows,” Williams said. “Knowing that you don’t know everyone, but that you have something in common, that is probably appealing to people. I think especially for me, when I got to college, it was just a way for me to meet new people.”

In the past two decades, the consumption of music, film and other media has predominantly switched to streaming services and algorithm-driven platforms, allowing for individually tailored consumption in industries that were previously monocultural — where individuals were all tuning in the same popular media at the same time.

Streaming platforms have made media more accessible than ever before, but have also eroded the communal aspect of media consumption. Perpetual availability has centered individual convenience over shared experiences.

Live performances, however, have remained one of the few places where creativity and community converge, even as rising costs and industry consolidation have made those experiences harder to access.

Perry B. Johnson, who holds a doctorate in communication, is a music scholar, producer, and part-time lecturer at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, said being a social person requires experiencing the unavoidable awkwardness of live, in-person interaction.

“There is something about the exchange of energy that happens when you are in community with other people that nourishes and fulfills something that we as social beings, at our core, cannot manifest in isolation,” Johnson said. She added that the reliance on technology for socialization during the COVID-19 pandemic intensified the social desire for in-person community.

For Williams, that community was found in the live music scene. “After [the pandemic], these shows and events felt much more special. It gave people a place to go and meet and be with their friends and forget about other things,” he said.

Non Plus Ultra, a nonprofit based in L.A., has hosted a variety of wacky and creative performances, from live film scoring to clown shows, for the past decade. Leon Manson, a board member of the organization, said the economic stress of COVID-19 forced some venues to sell to large entertainment companies.

“There was a big push during COVID times to save our DIY venues, to save our spaces,” Manson said. He said that many small venues were purchased by Live Nation, referencing their acquisition of the Echo.

Live Nation, which has recently dominated the live performance industry internationally through ticketing, venue ownership and concert promotion, is currently facing an antitrust lawsuit due to artificially inflated prices. Johnson said monopolization of ticketing impacts performers and audiences by taking revenue away from artists as well as making communal events more expensive and less accessible for concertgoers.

Manson said that as the live performance industry has become more profit-driven, showcasing creatives has become less of a priority, and smaller bands face increased challenges in booking shows. “A lot of venues have shifted to a model that is more consistent with doing less shows and doing more things that make money, which are usually these sort of themed DJ nights that you see, like the indie sleaze night, or emo night,” he said.

He criticized venues that won’t book newer or smaller artists in favor of events designed to appeal to mainstream audiences, saying, “They don’t really feel that cool. They don’t really feel that weird. Cool, to me, is weird and different. I want to go and experience something that I’ve not experienced before.”

Williams performed at Non Plus Ultra last year with a group called Missing Wiba. For him, smaller venues, like Non Plus Ultra, provide a different kind of community building — one where the culture is established around the space instead of the performances passing through it.

“It’s much easier to develop a connection with the style of a smaller venue like Non Plus Ultra, if you can show up to any event at the venue and know that you’ll probably be interested in it,” Williams said.

Manson posed DIY venues and culture as the solution to an industry that feels inaccessible for creatives, one that still provides a community to its consumers that streaming doesn’t.

“Everyone wants community, especially these days where the passivity is being reinforced, the isolation is being reinforced,” Manson said. “The answer to all of that, the way to resist the oppression that we’re currently facing, is community, and … working together to create different experiences and feel alive with each other.”

Johnson said intentional effort is required on behalf of people to get involved in live events, but that there are plenty of opportunities on campus for students who seek them out.

“There is a power of being in community, in those spaces, just by virtue of showing up for the same thing at the same time,” Johnson said. “I think live events, whether [it’s] theater, whether it’s film screenings on campus, whether it’s concerts on campus, they, by virtue of being in person, make visible to us those points of shared interest that can then help to bridge community.”