DJ VERSUS
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Austin, Texas has over 250 live music venues, yet one of the key challenges for Austin musicians is pay. Below is an exerpt from The Austin Music Census regarding this issue.
The single highest rated issue on Austin Music Census “Needs and Gaps” questions: 81.2% of all respondents say that “Stagnating Pay for Musicians Makes It Difficult to Make a Viable Income” has an “Extreme or Strong Impact”. Analysis of the income data from the 1,882 musicians who answered survey income questions illustrates why this issue appears to be urgent to musicians: nearly one third of them are earning $15,000 or less per year in pretax income (including all income sources), and approximately three
fourths of them are earning below the Austin MSA Mean Annual Wage.
Income stagnation and declining revenue issues are present throughout the music industry nationwide. It is very likely that Austin is not the only city to have a large artist population with urgent poverty and affordability issues. Any city that provides a home for a large artist class and is also experiencing the kind of annual growth that creates rapidly increasing cost of living and that does not take counteractive measures may likely experience similar issues. Affordability and Cost of Living Edging Out Musicians Living and affordability issues of all types housing
for rent and purchase, cost of living in food, utilities, and transportation were enormously important to ALL respondent groups, but are having the greatest effect on musicians.
Musicians and music industry workers are paying more for rent, mortgages, property taxes, and other costs of living. Downtown development of relatively expensive condos and apartments are pushing low and middle income artists and industry workers further out of the central City core.
There is some indication that musicians are beginning to move out of Austin altogether due tothe cumulative effect of affordability issues.
Increasing Silo and Fragmentation Effects: The Austin Music Census data and focus groups confirm an increasing number of new entrants into the Austin music industry job market. These new entrants suggest that the local industry as a whole is growing. However, most participants in the Census were not aware of how much the local industry has expanded or how large it actually is, or what networks and resources exist within it.
Musicians and entrepreneurs seem to work inside their own niches, so “siloing” seems to be an unintentional but very pervasive byproduct of this growth.
The Austin Music Census is a 235-page informative guide that provides valuable information for musicians. To read the census report, click here.
www.austintx.gov
AUSTIN
MUSIC
LOUNGE
THE AUSTIN
MUSIC CENSUS
A DATA DRIVEN ASSESSMENT OF
AUSTIN’S COMMERCIAL MUSIC ECONOMY
BY TITAN MUSIC GROUP, LLC
FOR THE CITY OF AUSTIN ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENTS
MUSIC & ENTERTAINMENT DIVISION