The latest census data on Austin’s music ecosystem will be posted on the city’s open data portal, along with data from the first group of applicant pools for the new Live Music Fund.

Last week, the city council passed a resolution accepting a Sound Music Cities study that surveyed more than 2,200 musicians and music industry professionals about the economic and cultural dynamics facing Austin musicians.

The resolution also gives city officials a better picture of how local and state policies work to prevent musicians and other creative artists from being devalued from the city. To that end, he directed plans to conduct a similar census every five years.

The resolution was part of a response to Department of Economic Development officials who said hosting third-party data on the city’s portal was against city code because it did not commission the census.

The position was announced after the Music Commission voted last fall to make the data available on a portal for use by outside researchers and organizations involved in music-related programs. Committee members stepped up that call last month, urging City Councilman Ryan Alter to lead a resolution passed on the consent agenda.

The 2022 Census revealed a range of challenges for local musicians, with only 64% of respondents confident they would stay in Austin for the next three years. Currently, only 35% of creators say he has three or more shows per month, and 20% of him among venue operators and concert presenters cite property taxes as their biggest business challenge.

Nagavali Medichala, chairman of the Music Commission and leader of EQ Austin, a nonprofit that helped advance the census, shared the data and initial analysis from Sound Music City via the city’s web resources. He said hosting would make it easier for outside groups to investigate the situation in Austin.music industry in one of the most famous music centers in the United States

“There have already been some lively conversations and we are definitely interested in working with a few groups that can take the next level of analysis by presenting this data. ‘ she said. “Providing good data fundamentally helps decision-making, whether it’s policy making or a nonprofit trying to build a program on this data.”

The last music survey, conducted in 2014 and published in 2015 with detailed analysis, found that nearly a third of local musicians make less than $15,000 a year.

Medicharla said moving to a five-year interval would help local elected officials and non-profit leaders make better policy decisions.

“Five years seems like a good interval to me, given the dynamic change in our city. So I think it would be good to get broader feedback and get a health check-up from industry and community members,” she said.

“If you wait 10 years, it will take too long to get feedback and react to change. Find ways to institutionalize these things within other professional music industry associations that have the ability and knowledge to do so.”

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