City opens new office to address arts, music and cultural needs

The city has announced the creation of a new office that will consolidate the operations of the Music and Entertainment Division and the Cultural Arts Division, in a decision intended to improve support for the city’s creative industries. The new Office of Arts, Culture, Music and Entertainment will operate as a stand-alone entity led by Angela Means, in a move away from those functions being contained within the Economic Development Department.

In years prior, the city’s cultural affairs programming and resources – music, special events, arts funding and the operations of cultural centers – had been spread across multiple departments. In a prepared statement announcing the change, City Manager T.C. Broadnax said his talks with cultural and arts leaders since starting his job had made it clear that the city’s creative community needs more support.

“After months of engaging with numerous organizations and individuals who are dedicated to the success of Austin’s creative community, it became clear to me that we needed to realign our resources to better support our cultural ecosystem. Under a unified office, we can improve how we provide services and create synergistic opportunities that attract tourists, generate revenue, and elevate Austin’s profile as a cultural destination.”

Arts leaders throughout the city had called for the creation of a unified office for creative interests in recent years, with the Austin Creative Alliance making a proposal in 2023 and meeting with Broadnax last year to help shape the scope and function of the new entity.

Also involved in the process of the new office’s design was Don Pitts, a former head of the Music and Entertainment Division who in recent years has consulted for major cities across the country on how to best support their music and creative economies.

In a memo provided last year, Pitts said an office for unified creative industries in Austin could enhance the city’s creative ecosystem by consolidating resources and encourage collaboration across the music, film, gaming and digital media industries.

By centralizing grant funding, legal support and marketing efforts, Pitts said the integration would encourage innovative partnerships, such as musicians composing for independent films or visual artists contributing to interactive media projects. Pitts also noted the potential for strong workforce development programs in partnership with Austin Community College, the University of Texas at Austin and higher education entities to create a steady pipeline of skilled professionals.

Pitts told the Austin Monitor that cities such as Denver, Detroit and San Francisco have benefited from having combined offices that can break down the perceived resource scarcity that comes from separate entities competing for city budget dollars.

“In my seven years there at the (music) office, I spent a lot of time defending that the music office was focused on music and that I didn’t hate other creative industries,” he said. “In my work with cities across the country, I mean most of them are in a situation with a shared office … from being there, there’s a lot of shared resources since we’re all on the same team when it comes to creatives.”

Nagavalli Medicharla, chair of the Music Commission and a member of the Arts Commission, said that a combined creative office could help the city to focus on planning and development matters affecting artists and musicians in addition to improving existing grant programs.

“These are niche areas and having the dedicated focus helps ensure that the policies, programs and funding that are built are truly tailored to foster cultural growth,” she said. “Having this kind of a focus will also be able to better address any of these niche-specific or sector-specific issues that the community faces.”

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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