This past June,
Yonge Street featured a story on the launch of a new Toronto music campaign:
4479 Toronto. Just over a month later, the campaign is celebrating an important milestone: Toronto City Council has endorsed a music city alliance with Austin, Texas.
4479 (the numbers refer to city's longitude and latitude points) was announced as part of this year's NXNE festival. A coalition led by Music Canada--and made up of members from the music industry, tourism, municipal government and business--the campaign's avowed goal is "to position Toronto as one of the greatest music cities in the world."
To that end, 4479 advocates for a stronger relationship between Toronto and other music destinations across North America. And, in particular, a stronger relationship with Austin, Texas, host city of SXSW, the American version of Toronto's popular week-long music festival NXNE.
"We have a great music scene here in Toronto," says Amy Terrill, Vice president of public affairs with Music Canada. "We've got great venues, great acts, great recording facilities. We have incredible talent and ton of activity. I think what we can learn from Austin is that in harnessing that activity and making a plan in support of that activity we could even double or triple it here in Toronto."
Terrill credits the City endorsement--the first of its kind in North America--to a 2012 Music Canada report on the lessons Toronto could learn from Austin, the broad-based support for the idea from within the Toronto music industry, and, as a result of those two things, strong support from city councilors and the Mayor's office.
"The report [Accelerating Toronto's Music Industry Growth - Leveraging Best Practices from Austin Texas] was really robust and it was done by a third-party," says Terrill. "Another really important thing we did is to pull people together from within the music community. It took time, obviously, because it's a huge community. We made sure to pull people from the venues, from the recording studies, from the indie labels, as well as managers and artists. I think that really resonated at City Hall...The support for this idea has really crossed the political spectrum."
The City of Toronto endorsement follows a similar motion passed in Austin on June 27. Now that both city's have made it past the first step, Toronto's general manager of economic development & culture will begin conversations with Austin on how to formalize the alliance. City Hall also directed staff to develop a larger music strategy--in consultation with the music industry-- with short-, medium- and long-term goals.
Terrill is hopeful that this movement on a music strategy will result in music office at City Hall as well as a music advisory committee, two proposals from the 2012 report.
Writer: Katia Snukal
Source: Amy Terrill, Vice president of Public Affairs, Music Canada