Call for locals to get involved in boost for music industry

Orange Council

Orange City Council is getting behind a new strategy aimed at boosting the local music industry by building expertise and connections between performers, venues and producers.

The Council has unveiled the new ‘Live and Local’ campaign, a program of skill-building workshops culminating in a series of micro-festivals to be staged in local businesses in September.


The program begins with the Live and Local Industry Forum to be held on 31 August 2022 in the Council Chambers. This event is aimed at anyone connected with live music: venues, artists, event producers, audiences, teachers, students, licensing and compliance, hospitality, marketing, advertisers, promoters, radio and local media.

People attending the forum, to be run by the Live Music Office, will be able to offer feed-back about what the industry needs to thrive, that will help the Council to develop strategies to support the industry.

To attend the forum please complete the online registration here.

In the following week, a series of Industry workshops will be held beginning 5 September 2022.

The culmination of the Live and Local campaign will be a Micro Festival held in local music venues over the weekend of 23 to 25 September.

Orange Mayor Cr Jason Hamling is calling for local music industry members to flag their interest in attending the first workshop.

“Our local music industry has been through tough times in recent years, and it’s great to be working in partnership with other agencies and tiers of government to build the capacity to come back from this downturn,” Cr Hamling said.

“We have an active and vibrant community of performers and venues across the region. One of the spin-offs of registering for the first forum will be the development of a data-base of all these names. A key of this program is building connections and the data-base will be a key tool in getting this done.”

“That’s why taking the time to register, and listing what it is that you have to offer the local music industry is a crucial first step. Please go the Council website and register now.”

The Live and Local program has been funded by $20 thousand from the Australia Council for the Arts, through the NSW Government’s Live Music Office and APRA AMCOS.

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