Sacramento, CA (Aug. 21, 2023) State of the City 2023 Part 1 took place in the former Men’s Warehouse building on K Street Monday night. Read the full transcript of Mayor Steinberg’s introduction and watch the livestream of the full presentation.

Mayor Steinberg’s Introduction:

We are gathered tonight in the heart of our downtown at 700 K, the former Men’s Warehouse. We’re gonna have a good time, I Guarantee IT!

‘The Band Hayez,’ filled this mostly vacant space with great music to get our evening started. Let’s give them a round of applause.

Tonight, is my first of three state of the city discussions, no long speeches, I want to start not with the hard stuff - will save that for later in the week.

*Mayor Steinberg kicks of the first 2023 State of the City panel discussion.*

Let’s instead talk about the fun stuff, the things that enliven a city and bring spirit, culture, the things that bring a community together. Let’s talk tonight about a key piece of our growing creative economy.

Let’s talk about how we grow our city and activate vacant spaces like this throughout the city—let’s talk about doing that through the universal language of love and joy—music.

Think about the last time you attended a live music show in Sacramento. Where was it? Was it a big arena show at Golden 1? An out-of-town band at Ace of Spades or Harlow’s?

If it was a local band, chances are, you saw them in someone’s backyard. More than 30% of shows in Sacramento are considered “do-it-yourself” – DIY –

Music Census

This is one of the many data points from the Sacramento Music Census, released earlier today. The Census, conducted late last year by Sound Music Cities, shows us that Sacramento is out of balance.

We’re going to talk through the findings in the census with our panel of experts in a few moments but allow me to be the opening act and highlight a few key facts.

Eighty six percent of musicians in Sacramento report four fewer opportunities a month to play in front of a crowd.

We are a proud increasingly diverse city, but the music scene still looks like the old days of the jazz jubilee.

Straight from the music census:

‘Sacramento music ecosvstem's racial diversity doesn't reflect the general population: it's more white and less representative of every other race and ethnicity category.’

*The Band Hayez kicked off the 2023 State of the City with some live music.*

Gender inequality is pronounced 67 percent male.

Not that there is anything wrong with being older, but the people who get gigs are musicians who have been playing for over 10 years.

There aren’t enough venues that can host local artists. Sacramento lacks venues with capacity between 100 to 500 people, spaces that are perfect for hosting local musicians looking to get their start.

Regulatory barriers and confusion about permitting dominated the concerns in the Census.

The young musicians surveyed said it better than anyone can - From one: “Our community is loaded with talent who just need a stage and some way to get paid.”

From another- “This city makes it as hard as possible for independent music to thrive.”

And yet the frustration expressed does not have to be the whole story. For Nearly 80% of creatives surveyed say they plan to stay in Sacramento…

To me, this Music Census is more than a set of data, and a snapshot in time, it’s a call to action.

If we are going to be a city that has so many fun things going on it will make your head spin, then the number of gigs for local artists needs to go way up.

If we are going to be a city that encourages and nurtures a creative economy and insists on genuine equity, we need our regulatory environment to reflect that.

And, if we are going to be a city that continues to grow local talent then we need to make creative spaces a priority.

Mayor Steinberg poses a question to the panelists during the 2023 State of the City discussion. From left to right: Julia Heath - Membership Director NIVA California, Tina Lee-Vogt - Nighttime Economy Manager, City of Sacramento, Megan Van Voorhis - Director of Convention & Cultural Services, City of Sacramento, & Scott Ford - Economic Development Director, Downtown Sacramento Partnership

I know regulatory reform is not exactly “rock and roll” but stay with me and I think you will see that not only can we make real changes in the city codes and practices, we can translate those changes into becoming the envy of every west coast major city.

Oh by the way—We are not starting from zero.

Sacramento has some great small and midsize venues, events producers, and artists doing fantastic work. Harlows, the team at Ace of Spades and LiveNation, B Street Theatre, Rink Studios, Goldfield Trading Post and of course our wonderful city team that runs Memorial Auditorium.

Mike Testa and Visit Sacramento have worked incredibly hard to put Sacramento on the map and help promote iconic music festivals like, Sol Blume, Aftershock and Golden Sky. Thank you Mike and Congratulations on another great year Chaez.

We have great business partners that have been looking for innovative ways to activate spaces like the one we are in tonight. Downtown Partnership, Midtown Association, Broadway and R Street –

And yet, we find ourselves always playing catch up as different city departments, artists, and event producers work through a system that badly needs an update.

Here is the problem in a nutshell,

*City Manager Howard Chan, Grammy Award winning artist Jay King and Mayor Darrell Steinberg pose after the panel discussion.*

Again, straight from the report. - ‘Live music is lumped in with bar and nightclub restrictions, so the regulations are limiting the local live music and venue business.’

It takes too long to get a permit to play live music; we make artists and businesses traverse too many city departments to get approvals, and the high costs are generally the same for larger events as they are for a local band looking to play on a Monday night on K street.

Take our entertainment permit for example – this was updated in 2014 but originally adopted in 2003. Prior to that the city offered “dance permits,” can you imagine? What are we, the tiny town from ‘Footloose?’ When we started, pop up meant how fast a piece of bread could rise from your toaster.

A café hosting karaoke is not a nightclub. An event activating a public space is not a nightclub. A small live music venue that is only open till 10pm is not a nightclub. These activities bring vibrancy to our city and need an approach that is less restrictive than what is allowed in our current process.

The world has changed.

Fast, nimble, spontaneous, activating underutilized spaces; all ideas that define our modern era. We either keep up or get left behind.

Let’s not just keep up. Let’s leap ahead.

Tonight, I propose the following seven changes to our city ordinances guided by the music census:

1. Streamline the permitting for special events, entertainment licenses, activations, film, pop-ups, and whatever else creatives can think of.

2. Establish a single point of entry, through an entertainment division at the city. Establish a time-certain and transparent process with no wondering what department you must check with.

3. Make the entire process on line-it is 2023 after all– we can easily leverage existing City IT software to make this happen.

4. Take an online permitting process and lessen the permit approval time for smaller events. No more than 10 to 14 days for small low impact events, 30 days for mid-size events, and if the event requires it, within 60 days.

*A packed house at the former Men’s Warehouse space at 700 K Street for Part 1 of Mayor Steinberg’s 2023 State of the City.*

This tiered approach would consider zoning, capacity, noise, and traffic among many other things.

If you’re a café owner looking to provide music for a small crowd of 50 people and you already have an occupancy permit, I don’t think the City needs to spend staff time re-inspecting your business if you already have all of that taken care of.

5. For vacant spaces, create an easy to obtain new pop up permit. If you want to activate a vacant lot, or a space like this one, you need to go through some additional checks, have a safety plan, a noise plan, and a traffic plan if necessary, but get it all done up front with a simple single application at the beginning of the process so there are no surprises closer to the event date.

6. Reduce the costs. We can justify doing so by reducing the amount of time our staff has to spend by a more efficient process. San Diego costs $367 for a one-time special event permit. San Francisco is $510. Sacramento is $1,331. Come on really.

When we received one-time Covid relief money in 2021, we invested more than any other city in the country in our creative economy. Let’s continue those wise decisions by giving our new creatives a break

7. Finally, we cannot ignore public safety. This only works if the public knows we are equally committed to doing everything we can to address perception and reality of safety. So, our streamlining must be coupled with a bad actor policy that establishes clear guidelines and ensures that regulations effectively discourage harmful and unsafe practices without burdening those who act responsibly.

If you meet the requirements laid out in code, you can put on your event. Simple as that.

Ok, so here’s the rock and roll part.

All of this – All these changes, together will create a more entrepreneurial environment for creatives to take advantage of. For every artist and new space we activate, ten times more people are out watching them perform.

Out paying a cover or a ticket fee.

Out grabbing dinner and drinks with their friends.

Out to support their friend’s band.

Out engaging with art and performance that adds life and vibrancy to our city.

Changing the regulations in a responsible way is only one big piece. I am working with the Downtown Partnership and the Office of Arts and Culture to bring an online booking provider to Sacramento. Together we can seed new real time ways to incentivize artists and new venues to sign up.

Shops, cafés, restaurants, community groups that don’t typically host live music can leverage a service like this to book artists and create more opportunities to perform throughout the city.

I’m booking time in the city council chambers In October to bring the first draft of these ordinance changes to the Law and Legislation committee. Plenty of time to refine these proposals and for you all out there to write, call and weigh in to shape the final product.

I’d like to turn it over to our panel for this evening to respond to some of these proposals and ideas and to share their thoughts on what it will take to make Sacramento a music capital of the west coast.

From left to right I am joined by: Scott Ford, Economic Development Director at Downtown Sacramento Partnership, Megan Van Voorhis, Director of Convention & Cultural Services, City of Sacramento, Tina Lee-Vogt, Nighttime Economy Manager, City of Sacramento, and Julia Heath, Membership Director at NIVA – National Independent Venue Association.

Thank you all for being here.