Better Practices in Music Organizing

To quick things you should know about. Anyone out there who attempts to use culture - particularly music communities - to engage voters should read this new report on best practices released by Air Traffic Control, a group that helps artists become involved in politics and social justice activism:

Better Practices: Engaging Concertgoers in Social Action (doc)

As great as these experiences were, I came to question how we can engage concertgoers better and whether it is worth it at all. Gathering staff, materials and volunteers to table can be a huge drain on an organization. So, what do these activities create? How do they turn new audiences into activists? And, while we’re at it, where did the idea of organizations and causes being at concerts come from in the first place?

The advice, practices and “inspired thought” we gathered from almost a dozen of the best and brightest doing this work doesn’t answer all of these questions, but it shows us how we can begin to do it better. It also reminds us of the potential: what we might gain access to if we learn to engage concertgoers better.

The following report breaks down ATC’s learning from interviews that were conducted with experienced professionals from the field of concert engagement. Clear themes emerged that we will explore in-depth. Each focus area can still be studied in greater detail and this will give more insight into how to live up to the potential of engaged concertgoers. We leave that for academics and students looking to study topics of practical and immediate use.
Themes

• Artist & Organizations
• Volunteers & Staffing
• Nature of Engaging People
• Artists’ Shout-outs
• Engagement sequences and follow-up
• Recommendations
• Tools

Good stuff worth checking out if you are in the field of cultural organizing.

Also of interest today in the field of cultural organizing is the launch of the Ultimate College Bowl competition:

Ultimate College Bowl

This is the third or fourth such program attempting to register young people this year that turns the celebrity engagement model on its head to incentivize voter registration.

Following the successes and failures of these projects will be, I think, one of the more interesting case studies coming out of this election. If they are successful, then I think we'll have cracked the nut on a whole new way to more successfully engage celebrities in the political process.