The industry was already operating on very slim margins. You could call it a scissor effect. Inflation affects household discretionary budgets for spending on culture, meaning their capacity to pay for tickets to live shows or to listen to music.
That also affects production costs for tours, wages, live shows and sound recordings. Margins that were already very tight are now even more so. Without these margins, businesses are having even more trouble reinvesting in projects for emerging artists or in niche market projects because there is no room for risk-taking.