CHARLOTTE, N.C. — When most live events went dark for more than a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, one Charlotte business owner was left scrambling to keep his business afloat.
Brandon Crumpton, the owner of Key Signature Entertainment, ended up reaching into his own pockets to keep paying his staff during the pandemic. Crumpton's company provides live music for all kinds of events, ranging from street festivals to private corporate events, and they went from booking 600 events to just a few dozen in 2020.
With no money coming in, paying his workers got harder and harder, but Crumpton was anxious to keep everyone together and employed.
"State, federal, county, city grants, we applied for everything we could," he said. "We got some of it, but didn't get all of it."
The lengthy shutdown led to Crumpton exhausting every resource at hand before dipping into his personal funds.
"You're not expecting to be shut down for six months," Crumpton said. "Definitely not expecting to be shut down for a year, so the reserves were gone and the grants were gone, and the loans were gone, and at that point, it was, 'this is the last step.'"
Crumpton's glad he did.
"Now that we're coming out of the other side of it, it's nice to have the team together," he explained. "I'm looking at other companies trying to find employees and I'm thankful I'm not in that position. We got through it together and being able to get back running at full capacity right when business came back, I'm extremely grateful for that."
WCNC Charlotte is always asking "where's the money?" If you need help, reach out to the Defenders team by emailing money@wcnc.com.
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