Dear GMP Community,
It has been a few weeks since our last update. As you will see below, we have been very active putting in motions plans in line with the mission I articulated in my last email. Today’s update covers the following:
- An update about the activities of our three core Committees, (i) Legislative Affairs, (ii) Workforce Readiness and (iii) Marketing and PR.
- An update about our three new Task Forces, whose mission is to lean into each of the three tax incentives in Georgia’s Music Investment Act and devise specific go-to-market strategies to promote it nationally and locally.
LEGISLATIVE AFFAIRS – headed by Tammy Hurt:
- We have retained Brian Hudson and The Hudson Group for another year as our lobbyist at the Georgia Capitol, with our core mission to protect the Music Investment Act.
- We are deeply engaged with several regional municipalities on a plenary agenda around the role of music in our community. More details on this forthcoming in about a month.
WORKFORCE READINESS – headed by Dr. Lyn Schenbeck:
We are presenting an event later this month called “Berklee Night In Atlanta”, which is hosted by GSU and sponsored by the Berklee School of Music and by ChooseATL. In attendance will be Berklee’s local Alumni Club members, Berklee students, and GSU’s music industry and music school students. This is an invite-only event for students and alumni of both schools and is not open to the public. The focus of this evening is to share experiences and encourage music industry students to choose Georgia as the place to build their careers in. I will moderate a panel about music jobs in Atlanta and Atlanta’s value proposition as a music industry hub. Panelists include Jim Dellas (composer/arranger/producer), Kerren Berz (Concertmaster, Augusta Symphony and studio violinist), and Greg Crawford (mic engineer/sound designer). Lyn is MC-ing. We appreciate all our partners and volunteers for helping make this special evening possible.
MARKETING AND PR – Headed by Tara Murphy:
- Tara and I traveled to NY in January for GRAMMY Week, where GMP sponsored a luncheon at the NY:LON conference. We had the opportunity to introduce the GA tax incentive to a sold-out room of two hundred industry executives. Thank you ChooseATL for co-sponsoring the event (essentially providing the budget), plus for joining us in NY for the presentation and sharing Atlanta’s story with the audience. You can read my speech on our blog here.
- You can download our initial “Tax Incentive 101” introductory flyer here. This was out handout in NY.
- The following week, Billboard ran not one but two separate stories about the Georgia Music Investment Act. So, all in all, a great way to kick off the year.
- We are planning multiple events this year, both local and national, in which we aim to spread the word, educate and instruct about the Georgia Music Investment Act and how it can be used. We will be reaching out to specific constituencies in upcoming weeks with invites to webinars and events to explain how the tax incentive works. Of note, even a small studio or indie artist can qualify and leverage the rebates offered by the law. There has been some misunderstanding locally about who may take advantage of the incentive. There is actually a path for even small companies to participate and leverage the law to reduce costs (!). So please stay tuned and join us in our upcoming webinars and meetings.
TASK FORCES:
We created a Task Force for each of the three tenants of Georgia’s Music Investment Act. Comprised of industry experts in each silo, our mission is to identify the stakeholders that could make rapid and sizable impact on the market, and then define the marketing package they would each need to get from us in order to be able to file for their incentives this year. Having met and ideated on this, we are now putting marketing packages together and preparing to launch our outreach. Many of you will receive invites in one area or another if you fit into these categories. Here is a list of our Task Forces – we thank all members for their valuable contributions:
1. Tour Pre-Production: Rick Levy, Tom Marzullo.
2. Recording: Matt Still, David Barbe, John Keane, Curtis Daniel, Thomas Kidd, Al McLean, Tammy Hurt.
3. Scoring: Steve Moretti, Brandon Bush, Jason Steel, Brian Brasher, Kevin Leahy, Tammy Hurt.
There is clearly a lot more to come and we are excited about what the rest of the year will bring. We thank you for your support and partnership. Feel free to ping me with any questions any time.
Thank you,
Shachar
