It’s a great time for economic consultants who are also music fans. It has become the norm for music-friendly cities and countries to hire folks with calculators to find out just how much music is worth to their particular geographical hinterland.
Earlier this month, the Generator NI music business support programme came up with a figure of £61.5 million (€79 million) for the economic value of the music industry in Northern Ireland. Last year’s IMRO report on the Irish music industry calculated that the music industry here contributes €473 million a year to the Irish economy.
Across the Irish Sea, Buckinghamshire New University and UK Music reckoned live music alone was worth £123 million (€159 million) last year to Bristol’s coffers.
The question, though, is what will the people who compiled the reports and the powers-that-be who got the reports do next? It’s all well and good to claim you’re a music city, but what else do you do? Remember that many cities are becoming unaffordable for musicians and other artists because of high rents, while commercial demands are reducing the stock of available venues and artistic spaces.
The venues, and the figures
OTR is currently in Austin, Texas, for the annual SXSW music festival. This city brands itself "the live music capital of the world" and has the venues, clubs and bands to back up this claim. It also has the figures; it claims music and music-related tourism is worth $1.8 billion (€1.6 billion) annually to the city. Yet when you look beyond the headlines, it's a different story. More than 1,200 jobs in Austin's music industry have been lost in the past four years and it's tourism rather than actual music-making that is now growing in terms of economic impact.
Current city mayor Steve Adler believes the time has come to put the focus on what’s happening on the ground. “Austin won’t be the live music capital of the world for much longer if we keep losing musicians and music venues,” he says. “The work the musicians are producing is as vibrant as ever, but this city has never been less affordable for them.”
The Austin Music & Creative Ecosystem Resolution is the mayor’s 20-point proposal to counter this. Adler’s bailout plan contains such ideas as building creative hubs for artists and encouraging bar patrons to add an extra tip for musicians. All of this puts the focus on the local and sustainable rather than the seasonal and transient festival economy.
It will be interesting to see the reaction to Adler’s proposals and especially the reaction from other music cities. After all, if the live music capital of the world can experience problems despite a $1.8 billion (€1.6 billion) music economy, other would-be music cities will need to do more to maintain their glow than simply hire consultants to come up with nice round figures.
