Music City launches Greater Nashville Music Census, collects data to support industry

Nashville has joined the ranks of a national cohort of cities who hope to find data-driven solutions to fuel its creative industries through a project called the Greater Nashville Music Census.

The project, a collaborative effort from the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee (CFMT), Music Venue Alliance of Nashville, Belmont University, Broadway Entertainment Association and Nashville Musicians Association, aims to collect data to better understand the city's music industry.

The census will open mid to late February. Its goal is to collect a variety of data from local musicians, music professionals, music nonprofits and music venues regarding how musicians live and work in Music City. It will survey the Greater Nashville region, including the 13 counties in and around Nashville.

The census will ask questions about the realities of working in the city's music industry. This will include general questions about demographics and occupation type, as well as a dive into census participants' perspectives on diversity, equity, and belonging in the industry.

From there, the data will be dissected, analyzed and interpreted to provide community leaders and policymakers with a more accurate understanding of the city's musical residents.

This could lead to a strong roadmap for legislative solutions that may address problems within the creative cultural spaces in the city. Some residents in Nashville pinpoint the rising cost of living in the city as a paramount problem for musicians and music-lovers. Others note a lack of diversity and inclusion within the music industry.

“We know anecdotally what our current problems are, and we have great examples of solutions coming from peer cities,” said Jamie Kent, a local singer-songwriter and the founder of Backstage Strategies.

“But historically, our industry hasn’t been very well organized when it comes to advocating for itself at the local level. So the bigger a coalition we can build through this census, the bigger the ideas we can tackle coming out of it.”

There are hopes for more community partners to join the project. The current organizations participating in the census are working with Sound Music Cities, a music policy firm, and joining a cohort of 20 cities across America with similar goals.

Cities participating in the census project, deemed "Music Friendly Cities," include Minneapolis, MN, New Orleans, LA, Chattanooga, TN and Charlotte, NC.

“Music is often described as the heartbeat of Nashville and serves as a vital attraction for economic development here,” said Eric Holt, founder of Lovenoise and an assistant professor at Belmont University.

“But the growth being fueled by our amazing music scene, is also causing so many within the industry to be left behind. Our hope is to give each and every one of them a voice in this census,” he continued.

Lauren Morales of the Broadway Entertainment Association agreed, saying “The musical culture of Nashville needs nurturing in tandem with the city’s continued growth.

"We’re excited to gain a better understanding of who we are now and to have the data to thoughtfully affect where we are headed.”

Here's who can participate in the census

Those in the Nashville area who are over 18 years old and working in the music industry in any capacity, or students involved in the industry, can fill out the census.

For those unsure of if they qualify as an industry professional, the census specifies, saying, "You should participate in the census if you contribute any type of music-related work, with or without compensation, and you believe your skills and commitment are worthy of acknowledgment and support. This includes part-time work, rarely paid work or volunteer work, and work that is more administrative than creative."

The census will take 10 to 20 minutes to complete and the answers will remain anonymous.

The Greater Nashville Music Census aims to release the results in early summer 2024 through three reports: a Summary Report, Data Deck and a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Report.

To learn more about the Greater Nashville Music Census or to get involved, readers can visit musiccitycensus.com.

Audrey Gibbs covers music at The Tennessean. Reach Audrey at agibbs@tennessean.com or on X at @AudreyRae_Gibbs.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville launches data-driven Greater Nashville Music Census