NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Nashville's music industry is banding together to put on recovery concerts next spring.
"What could be better than putting on a big concert to draw people to Nashville to help Nashville?" said Dave Brown, co-owner of The Basement and Basement East.
The initiative is called Music City Bands Together. The idea is to put on multi-artist concerts that raise money through ticket sales to benefit bands and businesses hurt by the pandemic.
"Think about all the musicians that make their money and feed their family by touring, specifically all the sidemen, all the backing musicians, not necessarily the artists that are making money from royalties, that's still coming in from airplay, but think about the touring drummer who has to feed their family," Brown said.
Music City Bands Together applied for a grant from the Event Marketing Fund. The fund is sourced from a $0.50 charge on any overnight stay at a hotel in Davidson County. Grants are awarded annually to events that draw out-of-town visitors, like CMA Fest and the Music City Bowl.
"We have all these assets as a city, so why not take those assets and really bring the community together to celebrate getting through all of this stuff," said Val Hoeppner of WMOT Roots Radio. "I mean we need a party."
Val Hoeppner is confident visitors will come to Nashville for this type of event. WMOT has listeners all over the country who have historically supported Nashville-centric fundraisers.
"We talked a lot about tornado recovery, COVID recovery and what musicians were going through and we had a lot of donations from outside Nashville," Hoeppner said.
According to the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp, the Event Marketing Fund is expected to have fewer dollars in it this year because of the pandemic's impact on the hotel industry.
In all, 12 events applied for funding that will be awarded at the end of June by the Mayor's Office.
