The City of Victoria has introduced a “Music Strategy” that aims to support local acts and cultivate the local music-scene. The goal is to turn Victoria into a world-class musical destination.
The “Music Strategy” is guided by 5 missions
- Remove regulatory barriers and create music friendly policies.
- Preserve existing spaces and encourage the development of new spaces.
- Build local capacity for artists to develop their music careers.
- Grow audiences and expand access to music in all its forms.
- Seek partnerships and collaborations to explore new innovative music platforms and experiences.
Victoria, British Columbia, waterfront at night
To achieve these goals, a number of different measures will be required, including: creating more mid-sized venues, expanding public transportation hours to promote travel to and from events, and creating a prominent musical hub in the city. The hub will feature live venues, rehearsal space, recording studios, and spaces where musicians can connect with photographers, graphic designers, and others who can help them create promotional material.
This plan was developed with the help of SOUND DIPLOMACY, a company that analyses local music scenes and then recommends ways to better them. In the case of Victoria, the company found a lack of late night dining options, ride-share options, and mid-sized venues to be problematic.
I have interviewed a handful of B.C. musicians over the last year and it has opened to my eyes to how directionless, confusing, and plain difficult of an industry it is. Throw in a pandemic, that halts live-events for almost two years, and an already tough industry is now a lot harder. The impact of COVID-19 on tourism, hospitality, and small business is very apparent. However, few realize how devastating it has been for musicians, especially the young and burgeoning. The stories I have heard are similar. A band or musician is finding their footing; a few recordings and some local appearances already under their belt. Then the pandemic happens: robbing them of live performances and making collaboration more difficult, especially in the early stages of the lockdown. Despite the challenge, most of them stayed creative and kept on writing songs. Others focused on effect use of social-media to keep on growing their fanbase and name recognition. Travis James, a singer and songwriter from Vancouver, found success in his hometown by singing to people on Vancouver beaches and posting it to Tik-Tok. I first came across his music by seeing one of these videos and landed myself an interview in the process. The creatives will be creative…
However, there is no substitute for playing live. It allows a musician to develop their communication, improvisation, timing, and confidence; skills that make them better in the studio as well. Regardless of any success they found online or otherwise: every musician I spoke with stressed the importance of performing-live and how they longed for the opportunity to return.
It is important to realize that being a musician does not end with playing your instruments well and writing good songs. Increasingly musicians have to act as their own manager: booking venues, utilizing social-media effectively, asking stations to feature their work, and generally taking the initiative to create opportunities and seize ones that present themselves.
The creation of a ‘symposium’ – a place where musicians can work together in professional development and the other side of being a musician – is something that the ‘music strategy’ committee head Kathryn Calder would like to see.
“Professional development, knowledge about entrepreneurship, all these things that go into being a professional musician or being in the industry. It’s going to be great to partner up and really bring some of those things together in a cohesive way.”
In my opinion, this initiative has enormous potential for encouraging and impacting young musicians. They have a lot to share with us and by helping them, we are investing in our own culture, communities, and economies.
Griffin Keyes