Creative Economy
Growing and investing in creative culture is a cornerstone of Austin's identity, as well its economy. The focus of the Grow and Invest in Austin's Creative Economy Priority Program is to encourage and support Austin’s live music, festivals, theater, film, digital media, and new creative art forms. In order to support the creative industry, this priority program includes educational and economic programs as well as initiatives that provide affordable transportation, work space, housing, and healthcare.
Progress
Program Champion:
Laura Esparza
Departments: Parks and Recreation, Planning and Zoning, Austin Public Library, Economic Development, Aviation
ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Four City Departments (Economic Development, Parks and Recreation (PARD), Public Works and the Public Library Departments,) worked cooperatively on the Creative Economy Priority Planning (CEPP) committee to address some of Austin’s most critical issues in sustaining Austin’s creative capital, including those that arose during a world-wide pandemic and economic crisis. Many of the CEPP priority tasks are in alignment with City Council’s Strategic Directions 23 Plan, and the group worked to align their metrics for both SD23 and CEPP.
Critical Need: Historic Preservation
The short-term priorities for Creative Economy Priority Program (CEPP) in FY20 were focused on heritage tourism and historic preservation and these priorities were addressed by several Departments during the course of the year.
The Economic Development Department launched the Heritage Tourism Division in June 2019. That division quickly launched the Heritage Grant Program in June 2019 with an online application for eligible capital or marketing, educational, and/or planning preservation projects. Fourteen nonprofits and businesses received Heritage Grants totaling $1.78 million. Seventy-eight percent of the Heritage Grants supported capital restoration projects in the Austin area. City departments received an additional $10 million for historic restoration projects and initiatives. Staff used several engagement efforts to promote the program due to the compressed time-frame. These included information sessions, email marketing campaigns, technical one-on-one assistance, twice weekly open office hours, community presentations, and door-to-door canvasing
PARD also formalized its own Heritage Tourism Office with its own staff, creating a strategic plan plus a regional and national marketing campaign for historic properties in parks. PARD’s newest historic programming unit, the Oakwood Cemetery Chapel, developed six online exhibits using ESRI StoryMaps with attendant programming to interpret the lives that built Austin and are laid to rest at Oakwood.
The Historic Preservation Office also coordinated two major historic resources surveys, conducted extensive community outreach in two East Austin neighborhoods, expanded educational material about the historic preservation program and local incentives, and completed the buildout of a new AMANDA folder to increase efficiency and coordination. This work represents a giant step forward for Austin’s historic preservation and education goals.
Oakwood Cemetery Chapel
Elizabeth Ney House
Critical Need: Creative Space
In 2019, the Economic Development Department’s Music and Entertainment Division implemented the Creative Space Assistance Program. The division recommended 26 organizations for assistance through the program totaling $752,282. Additionally in May 2020, the division launched the Austin Creative Space Disaster Relief Program to provide direct support to for-profit live music venues, performance spaces, art galleries, arts-focused nonprofits and individual artists facing temporary or permanent displacement. Musicians also reported that they generated approximately $400 per month in revenue from the Tip the Band Program, which allows artists to collect tips digitally.
The Artist Access program launched and completed its first official year of operation, facilitated through a partnership between the Parks and Recreation
Department and Cultural Arts Division with funding provided by City Council through Hotel Occupancy Tax funding. Thirteen arts organization completed the pilot program and another 17 were selected through an adjudicated process for free rehearsal space and low-cost performance space with more than half the beneficiaries going to multicultural groups or artists of color. Some theater companies, like Salvage Vanguard theater, were able to use the program to bridge into a new permanent, space of their own.
Critical Need: Funding Review Process
The Economic Development Department Cultural Arts Division initiated the Cultural Funding Review process in partnership with the community to analyze the City’s funding model for efficiency, equity and access. The Review process is expected to conclude in late 2020 in time for the 2021 call for applications in order to implement the new process.
Challenges
provided grants up to $50,000 to organizations and independent artists facing displacement and difficulty paying rent for their commercial creative spaces. The Austin Music Disaster Relief Fund provided $1,000 grants to help Austin’s most vulnerable musicians experiencing economic hardship address emergency needs. Additionally, the Cultural Arts Division made amendments in their cultural contracts to allow artists more flexibility in achieving their deliverables.
PARD’s Museums and Cultural Programs Division responded to COVID-19 with hundreds of digital programs of music, art and children’s activities delivered through their websites, YouTube Channel and social media. All programs were free and online festivals such as Juneteenth drew tens of thousands of visitors from all over the world. Cultural Center staff also created an Arts and Culture Summer Discovery program, providing free online summer camp experiences for children.
Austin Public Library (APL) faced the challenges of COVID-19 by creating a wide-ranging menu of downloadable materials including movies, music, magazines, and programs. In addition, APL created a Job Portal during the COVID-19 Pandemic as a way for Library staff to offer help to the Austin community through a challenging and uncertain job market. By visiting the APL website, job seekers got one-to-one job coaching from Library staff as well as advice on resumes, careers, unemployment, interview practice, and more. https://library.austintexas.libguides.com/JobPortal/
The Austin History Center collected materials for a new archival collection, the COVID-19 Files: Austin Responds to a Pandemic -- a gathering point for community narratives, images, records, art, and other forms of response to the impacts of COVID-19. Austinites have donated journals, drawings, videos, photos, business records, and social media posts that tell their stories during the global pandemic.
PARD’s Heritage Tourism Office continued activities despite COVID-19, conducting marker ceremonies online, producing tourism videos and utilizing marketing dollars to get creative with advertising using online sources. EDD’s Heritage Tourism Office conducted its second grants-making process with a renewed set of guidelines and application.
COVID-19 was a disaster for Austin’s cultural tourism portfolio, impacting thousands of artists, service workers and Hotel Occupancy Taxes that provides funding for the arts. The City of Austin responded with funding and programs for the latter half of FY20 to meet the essential needs of cultural workers and the needs of its citizen for culture, arts and entertainment. Working within their missions and their means, City staff teleworked to provide these much-needed resources.
The Economic Development Department conducted two grant programs to support and sustain local creatives and organizations facing extreme hardships due to the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Austin Creative Space Disaster Relief Program
Photo from KUT, Gabriel C. Perez