A quick look at what Seattle is doing
March 21, 2009 by CMC · 1 Comment
Continuing our ongoing snapshot look at what other city governments are doing to support their music communities, we now look to Seattle. Seattle’s been busy on the music front lately. Primarily through the office of Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, the city has used political action and clear, sustained policy direction to make music a force for positive economic and cultural development. This work has culminated in the “Seattle City of Music” marketing campaign, with Mayor Nickels proclaiming, “Music is a part of Seattle’s identity; it gives our city soul. We don’t just make or listen to music; we live it.”
- The aforementioned “Seattle City of Music” site and supporting campaign.
- Robust office of Arts and Cultural Affairs (much like Chicago)
- A sixteen member Seattle Arts Commission appointed by the Mayor and City Council.
- Creative engagement with music community to address shared public safety concerns
- Mayor’s Office music blog providing consistent communication from the Mayor’s Office to Seattle residents (and Seattle music fans elsewhere) on day-to-day Seattle music issues, includinwww.chicago-music.orgnews stories to music listings to policy and legislative announcements.
- Mayor’s Office-presented “happy hour”, a City-sponsored monthly film and music industry networking opportunity at different Seattle music venues
- City-sponsored free noontime music performances year round at City Hall.
- Seattle On Hold plays music by Seattle musicians on the City phone system and website.
- Prioritization of music in Seattle economic development strategies (and see here).
Others have noticed this work: Mayor Nickels was awarded the 2009 Award for Local Arts Leadership jointly by the United States Conference of Mayors’ and Americans for the Arts.
Some of these initiatives don’t make sense for Chicago, others we’d be wise to emulate (and in some areas Chicago’s kicking-butt where Seattle isn’t doing much). But as hope we’re making clear w/these posts, as the independent advocate for Chicago’s music community, CMC is working to see what other music cities are doing, learn from them, develop our own innovative strategies, and thereby improve Chicago.
And yes, we do realize Austin is the temporary center of the music universe right now with SXSW. Like we said, Chicago’s music community can learn from others…
Moving the conversation forward on the promoter ordinance
March 18, 2009 by CMC · 1 Comment
In our last post publishing the City’s latest version of the promoter ordinance, we also put up CMC’s statement on that version of the ordinance (all the good stuff on the ordinance is collected at our dedicated promoter ordinance page). Our statement is in-depth because we take this ordinance very seriously and we take the City’s power to legislate the music community’s conduct very seriously. But we at CMC believe that our independent advocacy on behalf of Chicago’s music community involves not just pointing out when and why the City isn’t acting in the community’s best interests, but also how we think we as a city can do better.
So we suggest in our statement a detailed proposal that if acted on will allow the music community to continue to thrive, add no new regulatory burdens (or significant costs) for working Chicago music community members, and ensure greater accountability and transparency of promoter’s conduct in Chicago: no new license, more sunshine on the promoter community, and, we think, a win-win.
Here’s the basic outline of our proposal:
- With the music community, develop “self-help measures” that the community can implement on its own. The music community has not been given a chance to fix what the City finds so concerning about music promotion in Chicago. Many in the music community are not even aware of what specific conduct the City is attempting to address with this proposed ordinance. Let’s engage industry leaders—including small promoters—to identify best practices.
- Amend the PPA/Special Events code (which regulates music venues) so that the venue owner (PPA licensee) would be required to clearly and unequivocally control—and be responsible for—all that happens at the venue, including conduct of the promoter and insurance coverage of promoter conduct.
- Commission an independent survey of the promoter industry to accurately determine who is in fact “in the business of promotion” and assess current industry practices, identify best practices, and make clear where public safety problems are occurring.
- Create a pilot City-managed registry for promoters that would require registered promoters to provide the City with their contact information and which events they will promote.
- Adjust the PPA code to require PPA licensees to only do business with registered promoters, rather than creating a new licensing class as this ordinance does.
A few things worth nothing here—CMC is under no illusion that this proposal is air-tight. We want you to comment here with your thoughts. And we will seek music community input beyond this blog. But for now, since no one is discussing alternatives to the ordinance and a new class of license for promoters, we feel it’s necessary to get the conversation moving away from a back-and forth on the particulars of promoter ordinance language, and towards a more expansive—and productive—discussion on what will work best for Chicago music and the general public alike.
CMC shares latest version of event promoter ordinance
March 3, 2009 by CMC · Leave a Comment
We at CMC posted on our dedicated event promoter ordinance page what we believe to be the current version of the City of Chicago’s proposed event promoter ordinance now before the City Council’s License and Consumer Protection Committee. We also posted a summary of our concerns with that ordinance as it’s currently drafted.
We know us posting this isn’t how things are usually done in Chicago, but as you are probably aware, this ordinance is generating a lot of discussion once again in the music community (it first was raised by the City in 2007). CMC posted this in the interest of providing the music community and the general public with as much information as possible prior to the Chicago City Council taking the ordinance up for a vote.
From media sources, we understand that the ordinance is not yet scheduled for a vote by the City Council’s License and Consumer Protection Committee, and that this ordinance may be redrafted again prior to any vote (could be soon, could be a long way off). So please take the ordinance with a grain of salt–it may change again before it’s voted on.
We think there has been too little public discussion of this issue, so we are also posting a “frequently asked questions” document about the ordinance prepared by the City this past September (to the best of CMC’s knowledge the most current such document from the City), and the Chicago Independent Review Panel of Building Safety Enforcement Powers’ 2003 report that the City cites in this version of the ordinance. If you make it all the way through the ordinance, towards the end of the doc you’ll see that the City has prepared some helpful detailing of the changes they’ve made to the ordinance since they first tabled it in 2007. We think these docs help explain the City’s positions and also answer some commonly asked questions (like “will I be covered by the ordinance?”).
You can jump to CMC’s dedicated event promoter ordinance page here.
Stay tuned to this site for more information about this important issue.