Hey Thanks, Supporters of Independent Music Venues,
My family was not a concertgoing family when I was a kid, and listening to music was a solitary experience. I didn’t start seeing shows until I was old enough to go on my own, and what I saw completely changed my perspective on music.
At clubs in Nashville and in my hometown of Murfreesboro, I got to be part of an audience. I got to feel the crackle of the give-and-take with the crowd — that electric feeling musicians speak about missing so much during the pandemic. Well, I felt it most of the time: Mom-and-pop venues, even the ones a step or three above the houses where I also saw shows, gave some space to musicians who weren’t very good — who sometimes kept coming back, and got progressively better. I got to know people who I only saw at shows, including musicians. I got to feel like I was part of a community.
These places, from tiny do-it-together spots and dive bars to rooms where 1,500 people pack in for a buzzed-about touring act, constitute an ecosystem that is vital to the music industry. Chances are taken in these spaces that you won’t see any other segment of the business taking. You won’t see any of that at a venue where the goals are set by a major corporation, any more than you would at a sleek mixed-use development built where a venue once was.
Most of the live-entertainment economy remains in suspended animation, and I’m deeply grateful to anyone who’s done something to help sustain it. Thank you to venue owners who made the difficult decision to close temporarily in response to the pandemic, and who set up crowdfunding campaigns with a promise to give money to your staff. Thank you to everyone who works to make it safe to see a show in a venue that has reopened for a limited-capacity audience. Thank you to everyone who’s bought a T-shirt or a mask from a venue, bought a ticket to a livestream or otherwise contributed to those campaigns. This includes Zeppelin-loving Michigan rockers and internet whipping boys Greta Van Fleet, who gave $10,000 to The East Room’s community fund.
Thank you to the National Independent Venue Association, formed in part to lobby Congress for federal aid. Thanks to everyone who wrote their representatives in NIVA’s #SaveOurStages email campaign. Thanks to U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and John Cornyn, who sponsored a bill specifically to help venues, and to the bipartisan group of co-sponsors, even though another round of financial aid still seems a long way off.
Thanks to the representatives of 15 Nashville venues who formed the Music Venue Alliance Nashville and lobbied Metro’s COVID-19 Financial Oversight Committee for help. Thanks to Metro Council for quickly approving the committee’s proposal to give venues access to a small amount of funds — every little bit helps. Thanks to the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp for turning its attention away from Lower Broadway and “room nights” to help MVAN organize and promote a six-week streaming festival called Music City Bandwidth.
Even in this strange, unpleasant time, venues are still broadening my understanding of what it means to enjoy music — as a member of a community. I’ll be grateful when it’s safe to get back inside a venue on a regular basis.
—Stephen Trageser
Music Editor, Nashville Scene
