At their live shows, the Jakob’s Ferry Stragglers’ earning potential is typically limited by the size of the venue they’re playing.

On the evening of March 14, the Stragglers live-streamed two sets of bluegrass from a band member’s living room that garnered about 20,000 views — and by inserting PayPal and Venmo links in their post, the stream brought in the same dollar amount as a well-paying gig.

“It was kind of crazy,” said lead guitarist and singer Gary Antol.

“Live from the living room” could become a genuine mantra for musicians in the coming weeks, as more and more areas of the economy shut down in deference to the spread of the coronavirus.

Nonprofit 25 Carrick Avenue was planning to host a series of live-streamed, audience-free concerts at its facility in Carrick, but that had to be modified following the latest advisories against gathering in public.

“Initially we thought it could work because the governor’s recommendation at that time was no gatherings of more than 25 people,” said 25 Carrick’s Marketing and Events Director Danielle Mashuda. “It was going to be the sound engineer, a small technical crew and the band. No wives, no friends. Then the additional (restrictions) started. We weren’t expecting it to escalate so quickly.”

With about 95 bands interested in participating, Mashuda and the 25 Carrick staff sprang into action.

“We’re going to go through the artists and see who has remote access so that we can still stream shows through the Live at 25 Carrick website,” she said.

The ultimate goal is to raise $25,000 through a GoFundMe page that will go to participating artists affected by the ongoing pandemic. As of Tuesday afternoon, donors had raised nearly $3,500.

“Everybody’s doing it remotely from their living room,” Mashuda said.

Well, nearly everybody.

The first show, was live-streamed Tuesday and featured Pittsburgh’s Bastard Bearded Irishmen, whose annual St. Patrick’s Day show at the Rex Theater was cancelled earlier this week.

They performed that show from the basement of 25 Carrick sound engineer Pete Peters’ house, and it was streamed through the band’s Facebook page.

For Antol and the Jakob’s Ferry Stragglers, that was the idea from the start.

“I also realize that we are very fortunate in the sense that we have a rather large and active social media following,” Antol said. “Every time we’ve ever done a stream, thousands of people have seen it.”

With that in mind, Antol said artists should try and coordinate with one another as well to avoid stepping on each others’ toes.

“I think it’s really important to stay abreast of when people are doing these, so we don’t all kill each other in the process,” he said. “I think it’s important to realize that a lot of people are doing it, which can surely water it down for everybody.”

But Antol also has an eye toward the future, not just about what will happen with coronavirus but with live-streaming.

“Eventually, things will return to a more normal situation and I think there is a lesson here for folks like us,” he said. “We can reach a lot more people through streaming than we can through shows.

“Now is the time to start building that future,” he said.

Click here for a Trib round-up of other ways to see live-streamed music, both locally and nationally.