Representatives from Austin’s music venues, neighborhood groups and hotel industry are expected to begin meeting next week to rework the city’s long-gestating “agent of change” policy intended to reduce friction between those three interest groups. That charge was the result of a meeting Thursday morning between a broad collection of parties including stakeholders from those […]
Austin Music Commission
The Austin Music Commission guides city practices on music development issues, including the SxSW music festival.
Posted inMusic & Entertainment
Music venues may face new rules as city adjusts ‘agent of change’ proposal
Austin officials have made significant changes to a pair of proposed policies affecting the city’s live music economy, and will spend much of May presenting them to local boards and community groups ahead of an expected early June vote by City Council. The policies – the so-called “agent of change” principle and an entertainment license requirement […]
Posted inDevelopment
Music Commission gives support to East Austin arts hub
The Music Commission gave its approval Monday to a request for support from Mosaic Sound Collective, an East Austin project that has been proposed as a future hub of music and jobs for Austin musicians. Mosaic organizers are currently preparing a rezoning request from office space to mixed-use commercial that could allow it to open […]
Posted inMusic & Entertainment
Music omnibus advances as venues await agent of change, licensing moves
The city is touring its early progress in enacting pieces of the Music & Creative Ecosystem Omnibus, a slate of actions designed to protect Austin creatives and venues from further eroding under development pressure. Presentations to the city’s Arts and Music commissions and other groups come as a related effort to draw expectations for developers […]
Posted inMusic & Entertainment
Theater group seeks city lease deal to stay in business
A nonprofit theater group hopes to tap into the city of Austin’s recent focus on preserving creative spaces within the city and get a new home for experimental fine arts in the process. Representatives of the Rude Mechanicals (or “Rude Mechs”) theater collective presented a request to the Music Commission on Monday, asking for that […]
Posted inCity Council
Reporter’s Notebook: Campaign promises
Leaders join the crowd… Saturday’s Women’s March on Austin saw massive crowds, including several City Council members, pack the streets of downtown. Spotted on the sidewalk of Congress Avenue was Council Member Pio Renteria, who gamely posed for at least one photograph. He linked up at the Capitol steps with Council colleagues Leslie Pool, Alison […]
Posted inMusic & Entertainment
Council expected to take up agent of change and entertainment licenses in March
Regulations for live music venues throughout Austin appear to be changing both very quickly and remarkably slowly. At Monday’s meeting of the city’s Music Commission, the dominant topic was the long-proposed “agent of change” principle that is intended to reduce legal friction between incompatible uses, such as music venues and residential development. That issue has […]
Posted inReporters' Notebook
Reporter’s Notebook: Kerfuffles big and small
Behold the future… Rejoice, for this Tuesday will at last bring to a close 2016’s relentlessly sadistic cycle of political campaigning. Despair, however, for the events leading up to it may also presage a ghoulish spectacle of local tactics to come. In other words, the marquee runoff race – the battle between District 10 City […]
Posted inLand Development Code
CodeNEXT could allow new music districts and creative spaces around Austin
Affordability – for both the city’s mostly lower-income artists and the venues and galleries where they work – will be the creative community’s biggest concern as Austin rolls out and gradually revises its CodeNEXT plan, a comprehensive rewrite of the Land Development Code. Release of the first draft is set for January. At Monday’s meeting […]
Posted inAustin
Character, retention of businesses fuel expansion of Soul-y Austin
Though he works on the very same block, Josh Blaine had never been inside East Austin’s Vortex theater prior to attending a meeting of what is now the Manor Road Merchants Association. But as manager of the In.gredients neighborhood grocery store, Blaine said he fell victim to the habit that many business owners and managers […]
Posted inMusic & Entertainment
Creative summit spurs talk of arts bond
With growth and development touching every corner of Austin, and rents and property values increasing as a result, boosters in the local arts community want business and political leaders to think big about how to preserve creative spaces for years to come. Exactly how big is an open question, but some in the creative world […]
Posted inMusic & Entertainment
Curfew relief in sight for Red River music venues
A handful of music venues along Red River Street between Sixth and 10th streets could soon have a later sound curfew for outdoor music. On Monday, the Music Commission unanimously passed an item that venue owners and other music boosters hope will result in a pilot program to study the effect of allowing live music […]