A symphony of voices has spoken: Cleveland rocks – and could benefit from more support for the music industry.
On Thursday night at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, Sen. Kent Smith (D-Euclid) unveiled plans to use liquor taxes to create a live music fund. If approved by the legislature, it would take alcohol taxes from venues of 3,000 people or less, create a fund administered by the Ohio Department of Development and allow venues to apply for up to $100,000 a year in rebates. The music program would be capped at $10 million.
“The sooner we get it out there and start having interested party meetings, then hopefully we'll be able to create some support and turn this proposal into policy,” he said. “I'm here tonight to stand alongside owner-operators, music venues, my other elected partners and… say that talent on stages across our region and our state are critically important to our shared quality of life.”
Smith said the bill could be proposed by next week, and Rep. Jamie Callender (R-Mentor) plans a similar proposal.
The initiative is the result of a survey of Cleveland’s musical ecosystem. The 24-page report, also released Thursday, was created by Sound Music Cities of Austin, Texas, with a $25,000 grant from the Cleveland Foundation.
The survey results reveal that creatives find the city is a great place to live and work, but they want to develop opportunities for non-touring revenue. Venue owners could use more support in general.
Sean Watterson, co-owner of the Happy Dog tavern in Cleveland, is one of the driving forces behind the project. He said the numbers show support for funding opportunities, whether to for-profit or nonprofits, comedy or music clubs. In his opinion, using liquor taxes is somewhat more sustainable than the cigarette tax which supports nonprofits in Cuyahoga County.
“People are not going to stop drinking nearly as fast as they're going to stop smoking,” he said earlier this week. “Liquor consumption is declining. Our model has always been: Subsidize the music with the alcohol. We don't make money on tickets. We lose money there. We make up for it by selling hot dogs and beer.”
Watterson has worked on the music census alongside Cindy Barber of the Beachland Ballroom. Her nonprofit, Cleveland Rocks: Past, Present, Future, is getting $200,000 from the state to build on another of the survey’s goals: A space to provide training.
"There's an old bowling alley next to the Beachland that the nonprofit owns," Barber said. "The idea is to turn that into a workforce development content provider. Using younger college kids to train to learn how to do audio production and video production at the same time, we'll be able to provide content to musicians for a lower cost."
A new music commission?
The majority of survey respondents - 76% - want to see Cleveland create an office of music economy similar to ones in Austin, Tulsa, Memphis and Nashville. Cuyahoga County Executive Chris Ronayne said that statistic “leapt out” at him from the report. During his brief remarks Thursday night, he teased such an idea.
“We need to let the world know what we do,” he said. “It’s about jobs. We know this, whether it’s what they’re doing over at Tri-C with sound, what we’re doing with production people… there’s a whole lot of other jobs in it. This is an economy that’s going to grow.”
Both Watterson and Ronayne pointed to the success of the Greater Cleveland Film Commission as a model for bolstering the region’s creative sector.
Time to play
Thursday’s presentation also marked the debut of Hello Cleveland, a new website which automatically aggregates show listings from throughout the region. A team from the Rock Hall designed the app in partnership with Destination Cleveland.
“We all know with the number of things we all manage… the last thing you need is yet another site where you need to go and load all your content,” said Jason Hanley, VP of education at the Rock Hall. “We needed a centralized calendar so that residents and visitors could support live music.”
