LOCAL STORY When Sarah Slaton lost her work as a musician due to COVID-19, she and others in the music industry, found new work testing patients for the virus. “It was devastating fi nancially. Between losing my job and having all of my shows canceled, I was really in a rough spot. I was really in a place of self-doubt last summer going into last fall.” Credit: Giles Clasen WITHOUT AUDIENCES, MUSIC INDUSTRY PROS FIND NICHE IN COVID RESPONSE SERVICES BY GILES CLASEN FACING DEVASTATION COVID-19 wasn’t the first time Sarah Slaton’s life was interrupted by illness. In 2009, not long after Slaton graduated college and moved to Denver, her mother was diagnosed with brain cancer. Slaton returned to Arkansas and cared for her mother, who passed away 14 months later. “I felt so fucking lost without her,” Slaton said. “It was like the whole world was upside-down, and I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. I bought a one-way flight to Europe. I took off and went backpacking for a little bit.” In time Slaton returned to Denver and started the band Edison as a tribute to her mother, even using a photo of her mom on the band’s first album. “I just always wanted to pursue being a musician, and I was always afraid to really go for it,” Slaton said. “Things changed, having her voice in the back of my head; I knew I had to just try.” 6 DENVER VOICE June 2021 In 2018, Edison broke up and Slaton began her solo career. She had built momentum going into 2020 and had scheduled a national solo tour. The coronavirus pandemic brought everything to a screeching halt for Slaton, as it did for many other Americans. Unlike some businesses during the pandemic, the music industry couldn’t continue at a limited capacity. Events were canceled and concerts were put on hold. The revenue dried up, and Slaton had no choice but to start collecting unemployment insurance. “It was devastating, financially,” Slaton said. “Between losing my job and having all of my shows canceled, I was really in a rough spot. I was really in a place of self-doubt last summer going into last fall.” Slaton was used to pinching her pennies as a touring musician, but this was different. In December of 2020, Slaton found another break, of sorts, in the music industry. She took a job with a COVID-19 response team for Highline Medical Solutions, an offshoot of Highline Events Solutions. FINDING A SOLUTION Highline had been an experiential marketing company that produced music and sporting events around the world since the mid-1990s. But as was the case with so many, when COVID-19 hit, Highline lost all of its business, and the Highline Event Solutions business struggled to survive. James Deighan, Highline’s managing partner and founder, said in the summer of 2020 the company had to furlough most of their 15 full-time staff and inform their 250 contractors around the country that there would be no work until the pandemic ended. “It was devastating,” Deighan said. “It was very, very difficult. It was very sad, but at the same time, there was absolutely nothing I could do. I held on as long as I possibly could before telling employees we have had for 13 or 18 years.” Deighan looked for any solution to keep his company going. He considered selling his house and even considered becoming a bartender again, a job he hadn’t done since the founding of Highline 26 years ago. Highline did qualify for a Paycheck Protection Program loan from the federal government, which helped him keep his staff paid a bit longer, but it ultimately wasn’t enough. “Come late July, early August, there wasn’t a dime left to spend on staff, let alone overhead,” Deighan said. Just as Highline looked like it might fall, Deighan had an idea. A friend with experience in the medical industry told Deighan about the logistical complexities involved in testing Colorado’s population for COVID.
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