Nashville and Other Music Cities Crash Austin’s SXSW Party

This year Nashville has joined the growing list of cities, states and even countries that send government representatives to the South-by-Southwest music festival and trade show in Austin, Texas. Nashville leaders feel like they’re defending the Music City brand.

Janet Miller of the Nashville-area Chamber of Commerce says it’s potentially uncomfortable to trumpet Nashville’s music credentials over the host city of Austin. At least, it would be uncomfortable if there weren’t so many other places doing the same thing.

“It’s very clear from seeing how aggressive some of these other cities are working on this, that we can’t just sit back and say ‘we’re Music City’ and that’s that.”

Seattle has been sponsoring events at South-by-Southwest since 2001. Memphis also has ongoing recruiting efforts. So does the state of Louisiana. Sherri McConnell is director of the state’s entertainment office and says this year she’s putting the hard-sell on a new tax credit. It’s modeled after Louisiana’s success recruiting films.

“It’s actually 25 cents on every dollar you spend recording a sound in the state of Louisiana, you will get back from the state. It’s actually a direct rebate.”

Entire countries like Ireland and New Zealand are also in recruiting mode.

The chairman of the Austin Music Commission says he’s not offended by the competition. He says the industry will decide for itself the best location for making music.

Nashville representatives have been out promoting a study that says the city has the highest concentration of music jobs in the country. Janet Miller and others are also collecting surveys that ask some of the 20,000 attendees how Nashville is perceived.

“There is a country music perception, of course. That’s not surprising. But we got a lot of comment of ‘best place in the country for musicians,’ ‘cool city,’ One guy wrote in ‘Nashville is a contender for the digital leader in America.’”

Miller says the digital realm of the music industry is where Nashville has the most competition.

See Nashville’s South-by-Southwest survey.

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