Miami Music Town Hall Meeting: The State of the Miami Music Industry
A couple of Tuesdays ago I took the Metrorail down to the Miami Museum of Science to attend the Miami Music Town Hall Meeting, organized by the Miami-Dade Film and Entertainment Advisory Board.
This was a combination of two of my passions - music and politics - so I was in heaven.
There were close to 100 people there. The main organizers of the event were F&E Board Director Jeff Peel and Chairman Will Edwards (talk about a reinaissance man in the music industry - musician, producer, label owner, magazine owner - InTune Monthly, owner of Transit Lounge, and I'm sure there's a million other things). I think Lolo of Sweat Records is involved with the board too, but she wasn't involved in leading the meeting.
Anyway, I'm not going to go over too many details, but the overall theme was, "where are the local music fans and how can we lure them out?" A lot of the ideas circled around developing online resources to centralize information about music in the city.
Unfortunately, I think this points to a bigger question - why aren't there enough fans?
Here are some of my thoughts:
1. On a positive note, city officials taking note that the local music scene has something to offerMiami is a huge sign that things are moving up. The worst situation would be no one caring and it was great to see an auditorium full of music professionals - record label representatives, promoters, club owners, writers, etc.
2. "Problems" - I kept getting a feeling that people thought that there is something "wrong" with how local music is being spread around Miami, like there is a group of 10,000 ravenous Miami music fans walking around blindly waiting for just the right flyer, website, or band to find them and draw them into the local music scene. It's unrealistic. Maybe the real issue is that there aren't that many local music fans in Miami (at least for rock, indie, folk, etc.).
3. The general consensus circled around there not being a "local music scene". But you know who wasn't at the meeting? Anyone associated with clubs like Space or Mansion. You didn't see Oscar G or any other known Miami House, Trance, or D&B DJs at the meeting complaining that people weren't coming out to see them spin. Miami's local music scene is found within the walls of those clubs. There's a reason why Winter Music Conference isn't full of local rock bands but rather world renouned DJs and electronic musicians.
4. It's time to "meet the market where it's at". I'm not saying that all bands should give up making music locally - if anything the indie and rock scene has been molded by the lack of attention. And bands are making music solely for themselves, which pushes the quality level into another stratosphere (i.e. Rachel Goodrich, Afrobeta, The JeanMarie, ArtOfficial, !MAYDAY!, etc., etc.) - but the 1,000 person local show is a myth for the near future.
Business-wise, it makes sense for bands to explore other avenues of attention besides focusing on the local music market. There are now a billion resources to reach a national and international audience. Any band, or business not taking full advantage of the internet (MySpace, Facebook, blogging, Twittering, etc.) is missing out on huge opprotunities. Develop your merchandise and product. Edwards even pointed, "this is the music business for a reason."
But overall, I'd still say this meeting was incredibly positive. The people that were in that room are the foundation of a developing music scene. It makes sense historically why there has to be a rebuilding of the local indie and rock scenes in Miami. In the 80's and 90's, the huge amount of "White Flight" completely changed the local rock and indie scene. Some statistics show that in the 90's alone there was a loss, through migration or death, of 200,000 whites, and an increase by almost three times that much in non-white hispanics. But, 2nd and 3rd generation Latinos are becoming more interested in local rock and indie music, and a new market is developing.
Either way, the local rock and indie scene has been rebounding and while I don't disagree that actions need to be taken to keep exposing the local music scene, I think it needs to be done with the understanding that Miami's music scene is developing and not that we should be looking for the hidden music fans.
If You Enjoyed This Post, You May Also Like:
- State of the Art - Friday, February 27, 2009
- Show Review: Arsenal 88, Furious Dudes, and Fireside Social at Jada Coles - Jan 16 2010
- Miami Music Festival, Yet Another Failed Music Festival
- Future Classic Festival Has Arrived
- Judging Groove On (Miami New Times Battle of the Bands)
NOTE FOR COMMENTS: Do not flame or leave obnoxious comments, THEY WILL NOT BE APPROVED. Constructive criticism should always be welcomed by any artist, but don't be a d-bag, show some class. Thanks. - REVMiami Staff
"Business-wise, it makes sense for bands to explore other avenues of attention besides focusing on the local music market. There are now a billion resources to reach a national and international audience. Any band, or business not taking full advantage of the internet (MySpace, Facebook, blogging, Twittering, etc.) is missing out on huge opprotunities. Develop your merchandise and product. Edwards even pointed, “this is the music business for a reason.” "
Word and...word!
And I agree that there are alot of people "just not into" the local music scene, but they'll fill up the AAA for what they do like. On the other hand: if fans pack a local concert for Rick Ross or Pit Bull, are they local music fans?
Music fan and local music fan are definitely not mutually exclusive. A lot of times music fans, i.e. people who solely attend mainstream/large concert events, are more attracted to seeing a famous person perform music, while a local music fan typically goes to music events to either see their friend's band or to discover music at the "basement level".
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THESE MEETINGS WERE B.S. - Meetings {supposedly} regarding the improvement of our local music scene took place as early as Spring of 2009, organized by the {not so} well-intended people of Transit Lounge in cahoots with the people of Filmiami- the local film industry. They were called "Town Hall Meetings" but not everyone in town proactively associated with or established within Miami's local music scene was invited. Only a select few. How these few were chosen still remains to be known. In July another meeting took place. Many thought it was the first meeting and that they were actually being invited to take part in the uniting of Miami's scattered music scene, so they embraced it with enthusiasm. But it had not been the first meeting, there had already been others before the July meeting. And they were not being invited to anything, they were being think-tanked into giving up their ideas, ideas that would later be used in what looks like the biggest scheme ever to rape the local artistic and musical community. For example, one local music store owner {who will remain unnamed here} suggested at one of these meetings that maybe someone should seek government funding through grants and organize a showcase of local talent. They even suggested a name: Miami Music Festival. Fast forward to Fall of 2009: The plan unfolds as the {supposed} largest live music event in Miami ever to feature local talent became announced. And what was it called? Funny, they named it Miami Music Festival. And how did they spark the concept? With $20,000 worth of grant money given to the owners of Transit Lounge with which they were to create an event that would bring Miami artists and bands into focus while boosting local economy, promoting local indie talent within the scene, and hopefully drawing in a new area of tourism; coming to Miami now for the music. An unknown number of bands paid $35 JUST TO BE CONSIDERED to play at the event. The event boasted having 300 performances in their fliers, so 300 times 35 equals over 10 thousand dollars ladies and gentlemen. That's a lot of mullah. And that is just the ones that played. We are not even counting the number of local bands and artists who applied and were turned down and lost their money {refunded only in wrist bands good for attending the festival that they were declined to play at). But we'll only count the accepted acts here, that is over $10,000. Add to that the $20,000 in grants and we are now up to thirty grand estimated to be handed over to Edwards and Transit Lounge. The information highway is a glorious thing, and if you search around you will find online ads posted by one "Lisa" at "@TransitLounge.us" recruiting volunteers to work at The Miami Music Festival. So they saved money on employees. Bands were forced to sign contracts stating that there would be no sound checks done at the festival and that any sound adjustments would be done to the taste of the sound technicians {who by the way, were SOUND TECH STUDENTS, not professional experienced sound guys, so yeah, they also saved money on sound} not sound done to the liking of the performers. The participating bands {who paid to be considered to perform} did not get paid, nor did many of them the get free parking they were promised to have while they were performing for the festival. Most performers were charged $10 per car by parking lot attendants who insisted that they had not been told that the performers could park for free and added that all festival-related parking spaces were reserved or already full. So what did a performer get out of playing this event? One would guess exposure, right? Nope. No bio information or genre categorizing detail was included for any of the bands in any of the fliers or event program booklets that were handed out. All you got was a list of band names and venue locations between pages loaded with big sponsor ads {yes, they also got money and other items from sponsors, too}. So in other words, if you were someone who only wanted to hear local rap artists you would have no idea where to go see them. And you would think that the festival's official website would then include links to the band's myspace pages or audio samples or youtube videos or something, right? Nope. Not one single drop of promotion of any kind for these artists, artists whom were already struggling as it is, and who had to pay $35 to apply to perform, and who were not compensated for performing in any way, and who on top of it all probably had to pay for their parking when they arrived at the gig. Local Miami Music Reporter Jordan Levin lashed out at the festival when she witnessed the disgusting display of disregard for local artists that she witnessed while attending the event. Feel free to look up her articles under the name "Miami Music Matters." So then we ask, where did all this $30+ thousand dollars go? We don't know. Radio promotions started on the week of the festival. Only three or four people in all of Miami "claim" to have seen a TV ad for the event but say that it ran at 3:00 AM on some obscure cable channel, never on a locally syndicated network channel. So where did the budget for promotions go? We'll tell you. They apparently spent $30,000 on a handful of banners that they hung from certain buildings in downtown Miami and Brickell. You could probably count the banners with both hands. That was the extent of the promotion that these bands got for their performance, and for their talent and time, and for their application fee. Thank you so very, very much Mr. Edwards! You are truly a soldier for the local music scene man! And this was all the end result and fruit of what started out as a series of so called "town hall meetings" that took place several months ago and into the summer. This was what it was all REALLY about. I hate to be the bearer of bad news for all of you out there who support live music and want to see our local scene bloom, but your local scene just essentially got raped by some very, very greedy people. I invite you to go online and research this all yourselves. Read comments posted online by people who attended and performed at Miami Music Festival. Research who was behind the festival, and who was behind these "town hall meetings" and find out who got invited and who did not. You will be disappointed and shocked at what you will find. We have greed and corruption among us boys and girls. And it is disguising itself as a lover of local art and live music...
This is incredibly sad to read. From all the initial reports I've heard that MMF was a failure and most bands ended up playing infront of miniscule crowds.
Of course, following the money trail is even more disturbing, and I post this comment with the warning that anyone reading it should take it with a grain of salt because of the annonymity of it. I welcome the author of the comment to get in touch with me and I would be more then willing to post his comment as an article on REVMiami as long as they were willing to come out of hiding and be willing to quote their sources of information they wrote about.
My email is ricdelgado@revmiami.com
Just a note here: When a comment is posted on a blog annoymously, complaining of specific people or actions, it just makes you look like a disgrunted musician. I could just as easily ask, how much effort did you put in to the event? How many fliers did you pass out? How much work did you do to try to make the event great? Additionally, complaints about the $30,000+, I warn that not knowing the specifics of where the money was spent just looks envious (unless you can prove where the money really went). And if the turnout was as low as I've been hearing, then trust me, a lot of people lost a lot of money on MMF.