Its popularity has an effect on the GDP of some countries. Cities are doing their best to get more, but they don’t see the big picture. Let’s use this as evidence that investing in our local music ecosystems makes sense.
Taylor Swift has arrived in town and it’s a big deal. During his appointments in the United States in 2023, it is estimated that he has added a total effect of 5,000 million dollars to the 20 cities he visited. According to the United States Travel Association, each and every $100 spent on tickets generated another $300 in indirect expenses on hotels, taxis, meals and merchandise. This sudden craze across Europe is expected to be so significant that there are fears it will worsen inflation, as enthusiasts spend more money. in a concert that most other people in live music for a whole year.
Most economies that celebrate her have an effect on forgetting that Taylor Swift is popular for the music she writes, records and performs. As she noted in an interview with Time magazine, it all started in Nashville, where her mother “took her (and her) brother to Nashville for spring break. . . We walked up and down Music Row. She waited in the car while I ran to the record labels one by one, handing my demo CD to the receptionists. She was discovered, signed, and started her career like all superstars, Taylor had to start somewhere.
What this article, or the ultimate report on Taylor Swift’s stratospheric rise, leaves out is that the Nashville she found is a testament to the strength of local musical ecosystems. This medium-sized American city, as a municipality, has not only invested in music by registering the Nashville Music City logo to give life to tourism. Over time, whether by design or luck, its business and regulatory environment has been optimized to attract, welcome and invest in music as a business. In many ways, the progression of Nashville’s music writing and publishing industry is an accident. The first international touring group, the Fisk Jubilee Singers, arrived from Nashville, but they may have come from anywhere. An insurance company, WSM (We Shield Millions), started a radio broadcast on the Grand Ole Opry to attract consumers in 1925. The low density and giant masses allowed other people to make noise without disturbing neighbors, which attracted to music corporations to its Edgehill community (part of which is now called Music Row). Its central location, about a 10-hour drive from much of the American population, made it attractive for travel. But there is much more than luck, destiny and history. In 2015, Tennessee, the nation’s largest employer in music publishing, was supported through tax incentives. The city had a strong music and entertainment workforce at the time. The mayor’s office has been proactive, to the point that Mayor Karl Dean was revered through the Country Music Association. Like all cities, there were challenges, but Taylor (and tens of thousands of others) made the pilgrimage to Nashville to sell her wares. Although she achieved success that she will never achieve, her good fortune demonstrates that not only is it possible, but decisions can be made within communities to maximize the chances of achieving it.
Communities can influence your chances of achieving commercial music hits. As in any industry, the more you invest in your roots, the harder those roots will be. It starts with music education, from learning tools to professional education, training and business learning. In the United Kingdom, for example, where Taylor will play three more times in addition to the previous six concerts, music schooling is being systematically reduced and higher education courses have been eliminated. Popular music venues, where Swift’s career began, remain under threat, and 2023 will be the toughest year on record. Brexit has reduced travel opportunities. In the Netherlands, where Swift will perform three times, plans to increase VAT on concert and festival tickets by 12 percent emissions are making tickets more expensive and making concerts too expensive to produce. In Australia, where Swift recently performed to thousands of people, 1,300 venues have closed since the pandemic began. In the United States, music remains an outlier in economic progress priorities and rarely, if ever, a priority sector. Although a new law on music tourism in the United States is welcome, major cities are facing huge budget deficits and discretionary spending (i. e. culture, leisure and entertainment) is the first to go. The series of restrictive noise ordinances adopted across the country are massively threatening live music.
This created a disconnect. We see (and some are experiencing) the enormous economic impact that music can have through Taylor Swift, but overall, we lack the foresight to recognize that decisions can be made to generate good fortune and create more stars and economic benefits. an effect on. Taylor is an economic powerhouse but also a welcome distraction to the cities she has selected to visit. They can celebrate the economic benefits of music without having to ensure that they take the right steps to create the situations in which maximum superstars emerge. and more music to develop.
It’s encouraging to see projects gaining momentum to increase investment in music and cultural infrastructure through taxes on ticket prices and the arrival of new datasets to make the price of music explicit (as in Austria, where Swift plays three times), but the sea replaces that. Cultural and economic phenomena can cause remains to be elusive in most places.
Taylor Swift is the clearest example we will ever have of why investing in music can affect the economy of cities. While cities pay attention to Taylor’s music, for the most part, that’s all they pay attention to.
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