This isn't fun anymore. All my projects are on hold.

[langwadt]

I'd expect that industry to boom soon, people have 1.5year of build up hunger for concerts

You'd think so, but I'm not so sure it's the case in practice.

Here in the UK the cinemas reopened a few weeks ago and my local multiplex had its first showing of a repeatedly delayed Hollywood blockbuster. You'd think there would have been pent up demand, but I went along on the first day and there were no more than about 20 people in a theatre with more than 10 times that capacity. It was a pretty surreal experience.

The concerts I know of aren't selling out either. There's still tickets available for a festival I'm going to in September which should have taken place early last year and has been deferred twice now.

Cinamas were probably a dying breed even before corona. People are probably reluctant to buy concert ticket until they no longer come with strange restrictions and red tape. I bars and restaurants were pretty much full the instant they opened again
 

[fcb]

One of the problems is that designers and manufacturers are snapping up all the stock they can get thier hands on. JIT (Just In Time) methodology has gone out the window.
This mean you are forced to do the same, and very quickly there is nothing left.

The places where I got busted is getting through a design, proto, and test so that I can order a production supply of parts. I didn't feel like I could rough-in a schematic and then just buy a years worth of parts against it.

I am not giving up on electronics, but actively pursuing some of my mechanical product concepts to buy myself some time. Not sure how well that will work out, but it sure beats just staring at empty part bins and a pick-and-place machine with cobwebs on it. 

It's certainly trying at the moment, but not impossible - most the shortages we've come across have either resolved themselves surprisingly quickly (back-orders for parts quoted at 20-24wks, turned up after 2-3 weeks, on several occasions), or we've just changed to a different package (not that easy for the esoteric stuff).  We've held back on releasing some lower cost product as we wanted to ration microcontrollers for existing lines.

Some distributors I know having been saying mid-2023 before normality returns and encouraging placement of big forward orders - only to have the factories refuse to acknowledge orders. Another mentioned a surprisingly well-known company buying all the dev boards they could just for a single IC.  Connector companies are running out of PA66 for moldings. etc....

My guess is it will resolve itself far far sooner than we think, probably helped by the next recession/depression.

[Bicurico]

Some 10 years ago a friend and I tried to develop a PC based satellite receiver. It used the fairly new Intel Atom based Micro ATX form-factor.

The idea was to build a custom Linux distribution based on VDR with all the bells and whistles. We got all parts and components like LCD screen for the frontend, with remote controller, etc. The only part missing was the case. The prototype used a small PC case, but we were going to develop our own case in a stereo/receiver format. My friend was doing the commercial part and had already buyers lined up.

This was at this point a bit more than a simple hobby project and we wanted to compete with Reelbox satellite receivers and, of course, with Dream Multimedia (DMM).

What I learned:

Once I finished building the PC/receiver from all the parts and got Linux/VDR to function properly with support for the satellite card, LCD display and remote, Asus announced that the motherboard I had chosen was being replaced with a new model using a different chipset. This meant reconfiguring the whole Linux distribution.

Then the satellite cards were no longer sold and a replacement had to be found.

Finally, the manufacturer of the LCD and remote stopped production and an alternative had to be found.

This went on and on!

Finally, quotations for PC/receiver cases up to 1.000 or even 10.000 units were simply too expensive to build a competitive product.

So we dropped this and for my small initial investment, I got one working prototype. Better than nothing. Plus I learned:

For small projects like this, you either buy all the required components upfront and invest all your and more or you will suffer from constant lack of supply in components.

Also, it is very difficult to compete with established brands that sell 10x as much as your target: you won't be able to manufacture at the same price like them.

Conclusion:

You either are working on something disruptive and have money to invest in this business or you are doing custom products at high premium price.

While it was never so easy to have a one man product development workshop in the garage with pick and place machines, CNC mills, CAD/CAM/CAE software, additive manufacturing machines, etc., the competition is nowadays far more agressive, agile and cost efficient. This makes the one-man-show as difficult as it has always been, despite all the technology.

Just my opinion, though...

Regards,
Vitor

[Bassman59]

I'd expect that industry to boom soon, people have 1.5year of build up hunger for concerts

You'd think so, but I'm not so sure it's the case in practice.

There are several pieces to this puzzle, but for starters, consider:

Much of the labor force has had to move on to other jobs and careers. Why? Because crew who worked as 1099 contractors (that is, for our non-US readers, independent contractors, not salaried employees) don't get unemployment payments, so when the industry shut down overnight in spring 2020, there were millions of people suddenly without work with no prospects of income. How many of them will return to the tour industry is a good question. I know a dozen people who lived on tour that are now working career-type jobs with salaries, benefits and security, and I don't know if any of them will give that up to get back onto a tour bus for two months.

Next are the logistics. Everyone now needs tour buses, trucking, audio and lighting systems, and of course venues. Too many acts want access to those finite resources and enough of those resources were sold off because demand vanished. Tours even for large club/small-theater acts are being booked for end of 2022 into 2023 now because 2021 is booked solid. The only good thing to come from this clamoring for venues is that cities that were not primary (New York, LA, SF, Boston, Austin) or secondary (Phoenix, Denver) touring markets are now getting shows that would have bypassed them. I know so many tours that bypassed Tucson to play Phoenix, and now they're playing Tucson because we have the venues. Any small city a hundred miles from a major city is now getting booked, and I think that's great.

Here in the UK the cinemas reopened a few weeks ago and my local multiplex had its first showing of a repeatedly delayed Hollywood blockbuster. You'd think there would have been pent up demand, but I went along on the first day and there were no more than about 20 people in a theatre with more than 10 times that capacity. It was a pretty surreal experience.

We went to see the new Marvel film, and it was at the local megaplex with two dozen screens, and all but two were showing that one film. There were only about a dozen people in the theater at the showing we attended.

We also went to see the "Summer Of Soul" film (highly recommended!) at the local indie theater and that was about half-full.

The concerts I know of aren't selling out either. There's still tickets available for a festival I'm going to in September which should have taken place early last year and has been deferred twice now.

I have no idea what to expect for my shows booked in November. One is at the nice big (800-capacity) venue in Jersey City which we've sold out twice in the past. it'll be interesting.

[Red Squirrel]

I've been busy with non electronic projects around the house and I'm about to get even busier as I am in the process of buying a 40 acre plot of land to eventually build an off grid homestead.

I do want to get more into electronics though and I have lot of components I bought way before that I barely touched so I'm good as far as components go... sort off.  It's one thing to buy stuff in case I'll need it later, but guaranteed if I want to start a specific project there will be things I'll need anyway.

Given the state of things I think I would just take a totally different approach to electronics.  Learn more analog stuff, vacuum tubes, relays etc.  Basically need to go low tech.  Those are things that are somewhat realistic to make yourself.  That rules out microcontroller type stuff though unless you want a PIC or Atmel the size of a house. 
 

[GlennSprigg]

Old discontinued projects!!!
Even Aliens make us laugh...

[RJSV]

You can ( still) 3-D print...OR can you?
What about 3-D print supplies ?
And, (knocking on wood), how possible is it, to DIY make your own plastic recycle, line, onto a reel.
Home produced recycled line, plenty of work out there, if you make / design mechanical components.
OR, wrong idea ?

[bson]

Because crew who worked as 1099 contractors (that is, for our non-US readers, independent contractors, not salaried employees) don't get unemployment payments, so when the industry shut down overnight in spring 2020, there were millions of people suddenly without work with no prospects of income.

Federal Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) covered independent contractors, business owners, and others who didn't qualify for their regular state programs.  From March 2020 (retroactive to January 2020) until it expired recently in September, and would still have been in effect when you wrote the above.  In addition they also qualified for rent assistance, and weren't evictable even if unable to pay their mortgage or rent during the pandemic.

[jonovid]

go figure it out.  discern what time it is.  1914 - 1938 - 2021
know the seasons. changes in the civilization.

[RJSV]

   Actually, drone delivered LATTE COFFEES are probably at the top, of any consumer business you might start, as an alternative to electronics...
   Just as many other replies, here, I express frustration and look elsewhere, but end up sticking with Electronics as a first choice, trying to make my (rent).
   In 1995, after industry lay-offs, I determined to look elsewhere... But by 1999 I was back at it, doing my best to garner resources and focus (on business documentation). Simultaneous, though, I did develop some non-tech industry usefulness: I did security monitoring (retail), private security (house and pet sitting), even Pet Walking. Non of these informal gigs involved any certification / licenses.
   I've even taken to heart, a Clint Eastwood movie, when he was DOWN, I mean really down, he used that time, practice, practice practice. What I mean is, he recovered from injuries, while getting his skills upgraded, privately. THEN, as troubles eased, he was back: stronger than ever, and with some new tricks.
(Course that was cowboy stuff, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly", or one of the other 'Spagetti Westerns'.
   I do remember in some past social disasters, the government went after those that illegally gouged supplys, (food) in wake of disaster. They 'shoot looters' used to be a thing said...
   But this is getting too wordy. I did want to say, I could hire 3 'Ricks' right now, to build / research stuff. Everything from frivolous consumer products (pocket shower) to nano-tech and even Bio-tech musings...
I just can't pay.

[bsfeechannel]

Old discontinued projects!!!
Even Aliens make us laugh...

It is becoming increasingly difficult to find vintage components.

[ajb]

Anyone looking for a career change right now?

The only other thing I can do for income is front-of-house mixing for rock bands.

Talk about an industry that was killed dead.

(I have a couple of shows scheduled for November. Maybe we'll actually do them.)

I'd expect that industry to boom soon, people have 1.5year of build up hunger for concerts

I'd be "cautious" about the "soon" here.

Yeah, the live event industry is kind of teetering right now.  There is definitely pent up demand for events on the attendee side, and pent up demand for the revenue on the artist/promoter/venue side, but no one wants to schedule a big festival or tour just to have it cancelled because of another surge--or end up being a superspreader event.  Plus the ongoing risk is still significant, a crew member touring with KISS recently died from COVID, supposedly in part due to lax safety measures and (allegedly) fake vaccine cards.  That's starting to slowly get better, but the persistent hesitancy of so many people to get vaccinated, and the attendant risk of new and potentially more dangerous variants developing among the unvaccinated is really holding the recovery back. 

The labor issue as Bassman59 was describing is also very real.   I was talking with someone who does a lot of work at a big arena a few months ago, who pointed at the posters for some upcoming events on the side of the building.  The very first show after a year and a half of shutdown was Guns N Roses, with some other equally big act the very next day.  These are big shows that will gross millions of dollars a night, with multiple truckloads of equipment each and tens of tons of that getting rigged overhead, and the second one will start loading in as soon as (if not a bit before) the last one finishes loading out.  He told me "I do NOT want to be on that call.  So many good people have left the industry, and anyone who hasn't is a year and a half out of practice.  I might get sent up to high rigging just because there aren't enough real riggers left and I do not belong there. It's going to be dangerous."

It'll get better eventually for sure.  It's just impossible to say when that'll happen at this point.