Sacramento musicians want more opportunity, survey finds. Here are the challenges they face
City officials released the results of the Sacramento Music Census on Monday, which revealed that members of the city’s music community want more opportunities, bigger venues and affordable costs to perform.
About 1,400 people from Sacramento’s music community responded to the survey, which was open from October through November of last year.
The census was conducted by Sound Music Cities, a consulting firm that specializes in music censuses, and city officials to better understand the current experience in the music scene, and musicians’ contributions to the creative economy in the capital region.
According to the census, music creatives, industry representatives, venues and presenters said the following:
▪ Out of the music creatives surveyed, 87% plan to stay in music and 78% plan to stay in Sacramento.
▪ Music creatives want more opportunities – 86% had fewer than than four local gigs per month.
▪ On average, musicians spend $9,251 annually on industry services, 50% of which is spent locally.
▪ Venues and presenters said Sacramento lacks venues catered for local musicians with capacity between 101 and 500 guests.
▪ The primary concerns of venues and presenters were cost of conditions, city communications and the entertainment licensing process.
In March 2022, the City of Sacramento announced the city council’s approval to invest $10 million to help Sacramento’s creative economy recover from the pandemic, including $250,000 to support arts journalism and $1.75 million for creative businesses.
“The findings of the Sacramento Music Census reinforce a lot of what we’ve been hearing anecdotally from the music community,” said Megan Van Voorhis, a city spokesperson, in a news release. “But it also gives us a concrete direction for where our energies are best spent to support the local music industry’s recovery. Thankfully, there are resources available to act on the findings.”
Mayor Darrell Steinberg planned to host a panel discussion Monday evening where he will provide an in-depth look at the results of the census and how to grow Sacramento’s music industry.
“This Music Census provides a roadmap for what we as a city can do to create more opportunities for artists and make it easier to host live music here,” Steinberg said in a prepared statement. “We need to build on the success of large festivals like Aftershock and Golden Sky to foster an ecosystem that nurtures our homegrown talent.”
This story was originally published August 21, 2023 at 1:49 PM.
