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Music & Entertainment
Long Center moving toward shared services pilot program for arts groups
The Long Center for the Performing Arts is moving ahead with planning for a proposed pilot program that would offer shared services and expected cost savings for small, cash-strapped arts organizations around the city. The pilot program, which is expected…
Music & Entertainment • By Chad Swiatecki • Apr 20, 2023
City Council to consider expanded arts, music venue code language by June
The city’s Music and Arts commissions have given their support to expanded definitions of what constitutes music venues and creative spaces, in the hope that the city will move ahead with building code changes and incentives to encourage those spaces…
Music & Entertainment • By Chad Swiatecki • Apr 18, 2023
Parks board delays SXSW fair pay action until June
The Parks and Recreation Board has signaled it will ask City Council to require fair pay standards to be included in all future contracts with South by Southwest, including its use of Auditorium Shores for free concerts for the public.…
Music & Entertainment • By Chad Swiatecki • Mar 29, 2023
Activists push to improve East Austin cultural spaces as city land heads for development
Arts stakeholders and local preservationists are pushing the city to make good on a 2021 resolution to improve and invest in a portion of East Austin known as the African American Cultural Heritage District. The group’s work, which is aimed…
Music & Entertainment • By Chad Swiatecki • Mar 22, 2023
Rally draws attention to criticism of SXSW artist pay
Union organizers for musicians took their criticism of South by Southwest’s artist payment practices to the street on Thursday, gathering outside the Austin Convention Center to rally and draw attention to their demand for increased compensation for the hundreds of…
Music & Entertainment • By Chad Swiatecki • Mar 17, 2023
Planning underway to bring hubs for music and arts to three cultural centers
The city’s three ethnic cultural centers are being considered to house hubs for music and other artistic endeavors that would provide members of the local Black, Latino and Asian American communities with more opportunities to explore and advance their creative…
Music & Entertainment • By Chad Swiatecki • Mar 13, 2023
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Music Commission to continue push to improve venue accessibility
The Music Commission plans to continue its work in making music venues of all sizes more accessible to the disabled, following the positive results from a task force on that issue convened last year by the Circuit of the Americas.…
Music & Entertainment • By Chad Swiatecki • Mar 9, 2023
Council votes clear path for April rollout of Live Music Fund
The city will begin taking applications for the Live Music Fund in April, after City Council approved two resolutions Thursday clearing the way for the awarding of grants to musicians and event promoters. The two items approved on consent were…
Music & Entertainment • By Chad Swiatecki • Feb 13, 2023
Exodus: Census shows musicians leaving Austin over affordability
Austin’s political and business leaders now have clear data to back up years of anecdotal evidence that local musicians are being driven out of the city due to the high cost of living and the general affordability crisis. The cost…
Music & Entertainment • By Chad Swiatecki • Feb 3, 2023
New cultural arts awards bring opportunities, disappointment for applicants
Staff in the city’s Cultural Arts Division prepared themselves to hear some frustration in response to the selection of the first recipients of a radically structured system for awarding arts contracts. During last week’s Arts Commission meeting, staffers reviewed the steps…
Music & Entertainment • By Chad Swiatecki • Feb 2, 2023
Convention center eyes 'campus-style' events schedule during closure for expansion
Leaders from the Austin Convention Center plan to take a campus-style approach to coordinating a greatly scaled back calendar of meeting and event business at downtown hotels during the four to five years the facility is closed for a substantial…
Music & Entertainment • By Chad Swiatecki • Jan 24, 2023
City preps $1.5M in assistance for creative spaces facing displacement
The city is preparing to open the application for the latest iteration of the Creative Space Assistance Program, which provides up to $50,000 to organizations, artists or for-profit venues facing financial hardships that could lead to their displacement. The $1.5…
