Re-blog! This is IMPORTANT!
So, this will be long, but I ask you to bear with me, as it affects the cultural and musical life of Chicago (and that’s certainly important right?):
From Jim DeRogatis:
With nary a word of public notice — and with no public hearings seeking input from the Chicago music community — the City Council Committee on License and Consumer Protection was set to meet again today in its rush to push through a new “promoters’ ordinance” initially proposed last year and only delayed at the last minute when music activists caught wind.
Like most laws, this one has a noble goal: to regulate concerts and dance events in Chicago, rooting out illegitimate “underground” promoters operating without proper licensing and therefore possibly endangering music lovers. Like many laws drafted from only one perspective, however, this one could cause serious, perhaps unintended consequences for people who try to promote live music here.
Of course, the city already has myriad laws on the books dictating proper licensing and safety codes for concerts and clubs — not the least of which is the controversial “anti-rave ordinance” passed in the ’90s, which came on top of police, fire, city building and health department oversight and the always acute watch of aldermen and neighborhood groups.
First of all, the underground music scene is alive, more alive than in the last decade, which makes this sort of thing highly suspect. Chicago once again gets credibility and the city tries to squash it, weeding out all of the undesirables to make for a cleaner and sterilized city (on the North Side, mind you. The South and West Sides are still systematically ignored, that is until neighborhoods in those surrounding areas become gentrified…then things change.)
If approved by the committee and the City Council, the law would require anyone promoting any event drawing more than 100 people to obtain a license — even if they are working with a well-established and already licensed promoter.
Licensees would also have to carry at least $300,000 in commercial liability insurance (even if the venue is insured), and they would have to be at least 21 years old (thereby ruling out enterprising college students, D.I.Y. punk fans and other budding young entrepreneurs from hosting a concert or a legal rave — and if you think that’s not a good idea, you should know that several of the top promoters in Chicago actually started their careers at age 18 or 19).
What all this means is that if, say, a local fanzine wanted to promote a monthly concert featuring the bands in its new issue at a well-established local club of 200 capacity, the editors would have to apply for a promoters’ license and meet all of the requirements and expenses, even if the club already has a license and can boast of a clean record of trouble-free events. The same would hold true of many regular benefit gigs.
I know many of those young promoters. My friend Nick began DJing at bars when he was 18. As the larger influx of teenagers and young adults from across the country migrate towards Chicago for college, a burgeoning underground, and mainstream, culture has arisen, largely organized by the people themselves. This created a wonderful, flouring scene for people of all-ages to have fun, meet new people and find a scene for themselves that didn’t involve keggers. As a junior in college, this scene has become something of a saving grace for myself. I’m a year younger than most students in my grade and the majority of my friends are well over 21. This allows us to spend time together in the city without the hassle of the “anti-rave” ordinances which also affected the general bar/club/lounge scene as well (making it more difficult for anyone under 21 to get in). Besides the underage thing, this sort of ordinance will pretty much stifle a HUGE outlet for LEGAL creativity. The city is aiming at cracking down on underground ventures (which seems pretty stupid as “the more you stifle, the more they rebel) but also seems to lack the proper insight to regard larger venues as well.
As it now stands, the law would only allow venues with “fixed seating” — that is to say, chairs that can’t be removed — to host one-time events by unlicensed promoters like our magazine or benefit in the example above. This requirement rules out the exact sort of clubs that would most benefit from these events, including venues such as the Empty Bottle, Buddy Guy’s Legends and Metro.
Those are three BIG places. I mean, it’s not the United Center, but in terms of culture in the city, those are pretty large venues. There’s more to be said on this, I won’t list it all here. My thoughts only apply to what my experience has been like. But it DOES affect people not just underage. Some tidbits from an interview Jim did with an idiot in City Hall, aka Efrat Dallal Stein, the spokeswoman for the Department of Business Affairs & Licensing here.
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