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Current mood:  optimistic Category: Music
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Here are some FAQ's that we've been getting about the PSA campaign we're asking the City to fund:
* Why are you asking for a handout/bailout from the City?
Well,
this isn't either. In the words of Mayor Wynn, his creation of economic
stimulus in the bust of 2001 was hotly contested and although it took
money out of an unbalanced City budget, it helped stabilize our local
economy. This would do the same - especially at a time when nobody else
is stepping up with a plan to create more local revenue.
* So in this time of budget shortfalls, exactly how will this expenditure help Austin's economy?
We have projected that our plan will contribute between $5 to 52 million to the local economy and $47,000 to $450,000 directly to the City budget EACH MONTH. This will pay by back the City threefold, even at a "failure rate"
* Will it sidetrack City Council from creating the Music Department?
Save
Austin Music supports and suggested this Department to the LMTF and we
support its creation 100%! But it will take months before it does
anything to impact our community as a result of its creation - and we
are in a crisis situation! Our plan is an interim plan which could
actually help fund the creation of the Music Department. Council
understands that we are not asking for an "either/or" scenario, and our
industry can earn the City enough money to fund both.
* This plan has a website component that will take attention from other listing websites, why?
Our
plan will actually create a cooperative of these websites and make a
comprehensive listing site with resources that no single music listings
site has. And our site will return this content to each of these
websites so that they have the benefit of the resources they contribute
as well. None of these sites has the ability to create the visitor
traffic our PSAs will create, and when our interim plan is complete in
a few months, we will return increased traffic and advertising
opportunities to these local businesses.
* Where will the money come from to fund the Music Department and the PSA?
Well,
despite the budget shortfalls, our live music helps contribute greatly
to the $48 million that hotel taxes generate into our tax base. This
amount will increase in 2009 as well. Given that the $5.5 million of
those taxes that was allocated to the arts last year, Live Music
received less than 10% of that money. Technically, we are receiving
less than 1% of taxes that we easily help generate 1/3 or more of. Does
that upset you? I sure hope so!
* So how do we get that money that we earn in order to support our industry?
Well,
if this was Boston in 1773, we might be throwing tea into the
harbor... Currently, our good friends in the fine arts community are
getting almost all of this money. We absolutely want and need to fund
the fine arts, but we have to remember that not many people are flying
into Austin to catch the Austin Symphony or the Austin Ballet and
generating those hotel taxes. There's enough there for all of us in the
fine and less-than-fine arts, but Live Music needs to be represented
fairly by receiving more of that money. You have to tell the City that
you're feeling like our fair portion of that money has been misdirected
and we want it to help our industry create more contribution to our
local economy!
So click here to email City Council: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/council/groupemail.htmAnd here to email City Manager Marc Ott: http://www.ci.austin.tx.us/connect/email_marcott.htmWe are starting to get support within Council for our plan, but it won't succeed without your support. Please forward this email to everyone in your address book, you'll be helping save our music and our local economy. Please say the following: ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++Dear Mayor Wynn, City Council, and City Manger Ott;I
am a concerned Austinite and voter who (loves music/plays music/am
employed in the local music industry) and I am effected by both the
financial crisis facing our local music industry and the compounding
impact of the national economic crisis.My
efforts to support my music career have been undermined by issues
addressed by the Live Music Task Force, but they have now been made
worse by recent economic crisis facing our national and local economy.
While I support the LMTF recommendations, and want the City to create a
Music Department, our community faces an immediate crisis while we
await your action to help our industry.I
am writing you urging you to support Save Austin Music's interim plan
to mobilize Austinites into our local music venues and small businesses
by funding their Public Service Announcement campaign and Music Listing
Website immediately. I know our City budget is taxed beyond reasonable
limits, but this plan will actually contribute back to our economy and
the City budget within weeks of being funded. It will create immediate
economic flow within our city by generating more local spending and
increased sales tax revenue. And it will help ease the increasing
financial difficulties that musicians have been enduring here for years.Save
Austin Music's PSA urges every Austinite to "see one Austin band this
month", which would put tens of thousands of people in Austin venues
and millions of dollars into our economy each month. It would also
serve as both interim plan and test project for the marketing plan
recommended by the LMTF, until its plan is in place. Most importantly,
it is an immediate solution for not just the music industry, but for
Austin's economy.I
want to stress that this is in no way a substitute for the proposed
Music Department, but an emergency interim measure that will have a
wider economic impact and possibly help fund the new department!Promoting
Austin's music to Austinites in this manner will encourage many to
spend their reduced recreational budgets here instead of traveling or
shopping online. Austinites will be encouraged to take a one-night
local vacation regularly by enjoying our music instead of traveling and
spending elsewhere. Best of all, the SAM plan could actually return revenue to the City budget through ad sales on the listing website.
We
also urge you to look at "where the money is going" from the hotel bed
taxes we help generate so much of, and the share that is returned to
Austin's Live Music Industry in incentives, programs, and support. We
estimate that we receive less than 1% yearly of the taxes we help
generate ($48 million last year). While we agree it is vital to our
City to fund the fine arts, we remind you that very few people visit
Austin to take in our Symphony, Opera, or Ballet. We're helping
generate bed taxes and we would like to be represented as such -
especially since representing us better will allow us to contribute
more to our local economy and tax base!
For
the last year, I have been a part of Save Austin Music, and I now
believe that this plan will actually allow our music to "Save Austin"
itself. This $15,000 expenditure each month will net millions in our
local economy and prove that our City government really believes that
Austin is "The Live Music Capital of the World" by tapping the
financial potential our industry offers.Thank you for your time and for helping us to Save Austin Music. Yours Truly,+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
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4:27 PM
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