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Good afternoon and welcome to the City Club of Cleveland, where we are devoted to conversations of consequence that help democracy thrive.

It's Tuesday, March 31st, and I'm Katherine Dean Dillman.

Member of the America 250 Ohio Commission and co-chair of the Commission's Untold Stories Committee.

We are excited to partner with the City Club throughout 2026 to observe America's 250th anniversary and Ohio's unique contributions to our nation's history and culture.

For March, our state recognizes all things music and entertainment, and as the birthplace of rock and roll.

Cleveland has a pretty loud reason to join the party.

In the 1950s, Cleveland played a key role in launching a global musical movement that paved the way for rock n roll as we know it today.

Ohio is home to notable names in rock, including The Black Keys, Tracy Chapman, Trent Reznor, Devo, Chrissie Hynde and Dave Grohl.

In 1995, Cleveland's rock legacy was cemented with the opening of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The Rock Hall honors rock's trailblazers and immerses visitors in rock's history.

Today, Cuyahoga County's live music scene truly punches above its weight, boasting total economic output of over $1 billion.

According to a recent report by the National Independent Venue Association.

However, this report also found that just 1 in 5 Ohio independent music venues ran a profit as rising costs for artists, venues and consumers stretched budgets across the board.

So how can we ensure the rock and roll heart still beats in Cleveland?

It's a privilege to have our guests with us to discuss both the history of rock and the future of live music here in Ohio.

Greg Harris is president and CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

Greg joined the Rock Hall in 2008 and was named CEO in 2012.

Before that, he spent 14 years at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum Of course, Greg is a music lover, played in garage bands and served as a road manager.

Also joining us is Sean Watterson, co-owner of The Happy Dog with the flagship restaurant in Cleveland's Gordon Square and a beloved stand inside Progressive Field.

Both locations are known for loading up hot dogs and tater tots with choices of 50 toppings.

The Happy Dog is also one of the most notable independent music venues in Northeast Ohio.

And in this role, Sean serves as president of the Ohio Chapter of the Independent Venue Association.

Moderating the conversation is Annie Zaleski music journalist and New York Times best selling author of works including Taylor Swift The Stories Behind the Songs, and Harry styles A sign of the times.

She has bylines in rolling Stone, NPR, music, time, and Billboard, to name a few.

We are in for a fantastic conversation.

A quick reminder for our live stream audience.

If you have a question during the Q&A portion of the forum, you may text it to (330)541-5794, and City Club staff will try to work it into the program.

Now, friends and members of the City Club of Cleveland, please join me in welcoming Greg Harris, Sean Watterson and Annie Zaleski.

All right.

All right.

Friendly room.

All right.

Thank you, everyone, for being here.

Can you hear me?

Okay.

All right.

So I think I see a lot of familiar faces here.

And I think first and foremost, we're here because we are all music fans and we love live music.

And we're so proud of Cleveland's legacy and Ohio's legacy in fostering live music and fostering the history of music.

So I think the question that a lot of times that we get a lot is why Cleveland and rock and roll history here?

Greg, I think you're equally and uniquely suited to tell the story of why rock and roll and why Cleveland.

I've had that question a few times.

And, thank you.

And to all of you, thanks for coming out today and being with us.

This is a topic that we all live, every day, and we're thrilled to share it with with more people.

And Cleveland is an amazing city and the music scene is remarkable.

And we need to keep it going and keep it strong.

But the history.

And please jump in.

If I'm missing some of this, I think you've all heard, as noted by our our our welcome from Ohio 250 that, you know, there's the Alan Freed piece of the story.

Which is fantastic.

A DJ out of, Salem, Ohio, playing rhythm and blues music for, black and white audiences and putting on concerts in the early 50s here.

Just staggering and amazing.

But some other milestones that give you the sense for it.

You know, Cleveland is the first place north of the Mason-Dixon line that Elvis performs.

Brooklyn High School, right?

If anybody has a film of that in your attic.

Yes.

It's it's been the elusive piece of, history.

And, supposedly it was filmed by, I think by, at Ed Randall's.

At his name.

Sounds about right.

Bill Randall, thank you.

For you.

Thank you.

And so, Elvis, north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Great music.

Great music area here.

The polka bands are playing rock and roll.

Bands like the, Pony Tails and others are recording, stuff here in the 50s.

And then it kind of blows up in the 60s.

You know, at Leo's Casino with the Motown acts coming down from Motown playing, Leo's Casino.

You have the Belkin brothers start promoting shows.

The Beatles are here on their very first tour of the US in 1964, when all that Ed Sullivan stuff blows up.

They play Cleveland.

Jimi Hendrix's first shows from coming from the UK back here are in Cleveland.

David Bowie's first shows as Ziggy Stardust are Belkin Brothers Productions at Public Auditorium a few blocks from here, and other bands that come through.

You're aware of rush?

And northern Canadian bands coming into Cleveland.

This was their market.

That's how they broke in the US in the Legacy Continues up until the present.

You know, Bone Thugs and Harmony are just, you know, hip hop royalty out of Cleveland.

And you could bookend them with the Valentinos, which is Bobby Womack and his band, his brothers in the early 60s.

And you get Kid Cudi and MC is taking on the world these days.

And so on and so on and so on.

And I haven't even left Cleveland.

Akron has got an unbelievable music scene.

So there's a lot of great stuff in the DNA of Cleveland, and, there's a lot of good music in the air from here.

And also others coming in the concert industry, the touring business, sound in the industry that supports touring, staging, a lot of that is headquartered, was headquartered in Cleveland or is still headquartered in Cleveland.

And a lot of people don't know about that.

Absolutely.

By the way, and I forgot the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is here.

Oh, that's that's a little thing.

You know, we heard that and we're 30 years going now.

Dick Pogue, one of our champions in the earliest days.

Great to see you, Dick.

Thank you for being here.

This community, the business community, the nonprofit, the government community put together $90,000,000.35 years ago to build that museum.

Since then, our economic impact to this region has been $2.4 billion.

So a $90 million investment did $2.4 billion, and it does 240 something million every single year, year in and year out that, it's here to stay.

Dick, it was a great investment.

I know what brought me to Cleveland, but it also brought 13.5 million people to Cleveland to celebrate rock and roll and celebrate this industry.

So that's my quick history of Cleveland music.

But we could just do a session on only that.

Well, and absolutely.

And you know, you mentioned that because in the Rock Hall too, there's you know, obviously we have a bunch, but we have also Ohio in the Midwest.

There's so many scenes in Ohio from the funk scene in Dayton and kind of the 90s underground scene in Columbus to, all sorts of other places.

And so, you know, it's because everything was so big in Cleveland, it's spiraled out, and there are all these amazing scenes that made Ohio in the Midwest also a destination, you know, and we didn't mention it was also, the Velvet Underground was very popular in Cleveland due to local, you know, and so there's all of these things that I think the history and what, you know, it still has a impact on popular music, but they were all able to succeed because of the rich cultural ecosystem that supported it.

I agree, the fans in Cleveland were remarkable, and I, I didn't talk that much about the the clubs, the club moment of that.

Like I said, like have, Leo's casino carrying on today with the beach lined ballroom.

I see Cindy over there with the happy dog, with, rock music.

But grog shops were still rows.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's really a vibrant, vibrant place to hear new music in returning bands.

And we were hanging out in the green room.

Sean told the story about a band that's playing Nautica this summer, but came through your place.

Yeah.

Back early 20 tens, Australian band King King Gizzard.

And that's that's one of the great things about the small club level.

It's one of the great things you can see a band that ten years from now will be big, in 25 years from now, will be in his house.

But you can also see your neighbors and friends expressing themselves on a stage creatively, the kind of community that builds in places like the beach land in the Grog Shop and the Happy Dog and Spotlight Cleveland, the little road, some small places, is really important to the to the entire music ecosystem.

People don't end up in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by starting out at that level.

They start at our level and we think it's important.

I'd say to, you know, with the history, we did a music census in Cleveland a couple of years ago and and Cleveland Rocks was a big part of helping make that happen.

And Cleveland was one of, at the time, 20 cities, now 25 cities.

Our response rate was second only to Nashville.

We came in ahead of Austin, Texas, ahead of Detroit, ahead of Washington, DC.

Some big cities and some music cities, New Orleans.

So we have that history, but that history carries through to the current day and that's it.

And especially with small clubs, you see people going there who are, you know, seen first off, tomorrow, stars, like you said, but also making their own memories.

I mean, I think all of us here remember going to see a massive band in a big club with 50 people.

No one knew who they were.

They felt like your secret.

And Cleveland is uniquely suited to give those kind of memories to people, because we have so many clubs and so many smaller clubs doing that.

But getting these clubs to town can be challenging.

So I think, Sean, I think it might be helpful to talk about, you know, you go and see your favorite band, you buy a ticket.

What is it actually taking to get them to Cleveland?

You know, at every level it's different, but at every level, especially since Covid, the cost for those artists of going on tour has increased.

Like every piece of their their going on tour has increased the gas to get them from from stop, to stop.

The whole cost of living has gone up.

We work with, especially those developing bands and ways to try and make sure that they can afford that cost.

You talk to a lot of those developing bands and and again, Cleveland rocks as a music incubator.

It's really sort of first in class in the country and working with these artists.

And I can tell a story about, one of their artists that we actually put out on tour.

But the the expectation going in is, I hope I don't lose too much money while I'm on tour.

That's the baseline expectation.

And the same things happening at the club level.

And we can get into the to the data that that never did on the state of the live independent sector.

But, but we're trying these experiments to try and, and make the system work.

So one of these is, it's called One Night Live.

So Happy Dog is part of we we founded a national booking collaborative, called detour.

We worked with independent clubs all across the country.

We realized these artists are losing money.

The small venues where they first play are are losing money on those first plays.

So how do we mitigate those risks?

And this is where philanthropy is coming in.

Because to support the artists, you need music incubators where you used to have record labels and you used to have other supports.

So supporting the artists through an incubator to get out on tour.

We also partner with a group out of New York called the Live Music Society, and they support small clubs, 300 cap and under clubs.

And so we set up this touring model where we, the live Music Society, subsidize the clubs to take the show.

The music incubator helps defray the costs for the artists going out on the road, helping them produce merch that they'll be able to sell out on tour.

And these are ways we're trying to we're trying to mitigate some of that cost in that risk.

But it's real.

And I think these are the things that fans might not realize, like when they're going to a show to buy a T shirt, all of the things that go into even getting to that point.

And yeah, and it's a risk for clubs, it's a risk for promoters and it's a risk for the bands.

Yeah.

And the Niva data bears it out.

So we founded the National Independent Venue Association during Covid when we were closed and I can tell you personally, the Happy dog was closed for 15 months.

We couldn't make things work with, that with the smaller crowd size restrictions and bands weren't on tour because the whole system broke down.

So Niva, brought all those clubs together.

We did a big advocacy push.

Save our stages.

Rock Hall helped us out a ton with that.

It's integral to the to the creation of Niva.

But we did an economic study first of its kind last year, and what it showed is at independent venues.

So the ones that aren't Live Nation or AEG, so think globally are in for AEG and live in the House of Blues, House of Blues, the Agora or AEG.

64% of those venues lost money in 2024.

Nationally.

We were able to do that data for Ohio and Cleveland, specifically for Cuyahoga County.

75% of the independent venues in Cuyahoga County lost money in 2024.

So this is a very fragile ecosystem, contributes a ton for the economy.

You know, over $1 billion in economic output just in Cuyahoga County alone.

And close to 450 million in wages and benefits.

There's real economic impact there.

That's what's at risk if we don't support this independent sector.

So what other challenges?

You know, Cuyahoga County, especially, what other challenges are venues facing then?

Obviously, the economic headwinds and increased expenses.

Are there other factors that go into that?

It's pretty much anything I drink in less bad weather or drinking less.

The cost of electricity is going up higher than the cost of than the cost of living increases.

All of those things are happening.

The cost for talent is going up.

People are staying home and staying on their screens.

Yeah.

Or when they come out, they're not staying out as late.

And all of those things when, when you're operating at paper thin margins in the first place, all of those things can, can knock you into a spot where it makes it unsustainable.

Yeah.

And and it's not, just the small venues.

Our shows that we do.

This is for anybody out there that thinks they want to be a promoter.

The margins are not good.

You lose money.

Places like House of losing the Door.

They also lose money on shows.

It isn't a guarantee they're even the biggies.

It's not a guarantee.

For us, it's.

It's a challenge.

For smaller venues, it's even harder.

We have the a ticket tax in, in this region that, really makes it even harder than some other places.

And so it's, there's a lot of headwinds.

You forget those headwinds when there's a great band on stage and there's a full house, and it feels perfect.

But it's hard to do that 365 days a year.

It's impossible.

Yeah.

I will say some things that help us.

We get some funds from the, cigaret tax for the arts.

Cuyahoga County and 65% of what we receive from that goes goes to artist.

Anybody that's on our stages gets paid.

People.

Artists that we, local artists or most of our shows.

Most of that goes back to them.

And without things like that, it would be impossible.

And venues have it even harder.

Yeah.

I do also want to give another shout out because, you know, Cleveland is a place where a lot of things start and other people pick up on it later on.

One of the things that's helping developing artists, touring, developing artists.

We have something called No Surf House here in Cleveland, which, and we've got them right here at table five.

They've, they've bought a house and set it up so that touring bands can stay there for free or at a discounted rate, depending on how much they're, they're making while they're here.

And it makes such a difference.

But the other thing it does is it allows us to convince the bands that are coming through to spend two nights in Cleveland because they can do their laundry.

They can they can make a dollar.

Yeah.

They don't have to get a gas station burrito.

They can really enjoy themselves and spend more time in Cleveland, take their music to the Rock Hall and and get in to see, to see all of that.

So I just wanted to make sure we, we recognize I just another part of the innovation that happens.

And I mean, that's what strikes me is that, you know, back in the day, obviously, when Cleveland's coming up, it was a lot of grit and scrappiness, and it was people building things from the ground up.

And that spirit is still existing.

And we because we've identified problems.

Now there's people working together to be like, okay, what are the solutions?

How can we all come together and realize that together we can make a difference and make things better?

And I think, you know, we're seeing a lot of these things starting to percolate.

You know, we were talking in the green room before about some of the things.

So when you talk a little bit about what we're doing now to try to solve some of these very thorny structural problems.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, part of it is, is having the data and having the research.

And that's what we've been able to do with the music census, the Greater Cleveland Music Census, the Cleveland Foundation stepped up and helped us conduct that music census that give gave us the data on what do the musicians see as problems and what are the musicians feel that they need?

So we're not making assumptions about, about what what their needs are or how to solve their problems.

And one of the things that came out in that census is they're not looking for big grants.

They're looking they're looking for micro grants.

They're looking for a little bit of support to help them create their music, whether that's to record, whether that's to help them, front the money to buy the merch that they're eventually going to sell on tour.

So that's great data to have.

And then the state of live on what the economic impact of independent music.

That's great data to have because then when we talk to civic leaders, we can speak both in the emotional language of how important music is to all of us.

And what that experience of seeing music live in community, is.

But then we can also get across the point that this is these are real jobs.

This is this is a real economic impact.

I know Greg has tons of data on what the Rock Hall does to to bring people to town and to drive spending and the jobs they have there.

This is happening at the independent clubs.

It's also happening for the larger shows.

All of that helps us have those conversations so that we can then get that extra help, because what's always happened is everybody's been working on this themselves while they're trying to run their club or trying to record their music or fixing the toilet when it breaks at 1130 at night.

All of those things there's there just isn't the extra bandwidth to to do this on the collective basis.

Covid helped us with that.

I think locally here too.

The small clubs got together back in the early 20 tens around the admissions tax issue.

And we had a great, great advocate for that.

Marty Sweeney was, Cleveland City Council president at the time, stepped up.

We were able to get with Marty's help, we were able to get legislation that reduced admissions taxes on the smallest of clubs.

And that's helped us survive.

So it's it's having that ability to have those conversations and have a little bit, a little bit more in terms of resources to step out of our day to day and organize, because we know Cleveland is a music city and the data shows it.

And my colleagues in the National Independent Venue Association see it.

It's why they held their first conference here.

But the rest of the world and the rest of Cleveland may not know it, in the way that people know about New Orleans and Austin and and Nashville.

We can't do that simply by having great musicians and having great clubs.

We need we need a bigger effort than that.

And that's that's where we are.

That's, I think, what the conversation about Cuyahoga live as an initiative at the county level and creating a music commission to be able to fund, help, help support the work that Cleveland Rocks is doing and helping artists, but then also create some capacity to help the clubs and to help get the message out about Cleveland as a music city.

And that's true.

And marketing is half the battle, right?

You know, if people are coming to town and they're like, hey, I'm in a town for a weekend, what's going on?

You know, they need to know where to go, what clubs might be available, what kind of they like a certain kind of live music.

Where can I go?

What can I see?

And, you know, and finding that information.

And people get frustrated if they can't find it right away.

Go find something else.

And so and this is, you know, it's Cleveland sometimes I think struggles telling its own story.

And so we have to be, you know, louder and prouder about what's actually going on here.

Yeah.

And we're, we're sort of rounding third and heading for home on that solution for that.

And it's a thing called Hello, Cleveland.

It's a universal calendar that when a club, Booker puts their acts into their own system for tickets, it would automatically populate this universal calendar for anybody to see feed the same information.

And, our team at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, there was a group trying to offer a system like this to, the venues in town for over $300,000.

And our developers, Tim Hardin's here, and his team put together this solution.

It's it's been piloted, but now we really need to hammer it and, make sure it's connected to every club, whether it's music, comedy, other things that are happening.

So people do have that universal one stop to know what's going on.

I know it's super important for our visitors.

80% of them come from outside of a six hour drive, and they will be coming to town, to visit the museum.

It's over half a million each year, but things like rush is going to play two nights in Cleveland.

Fans are going to come from all over the world and stay here for a couple days, and they're not playing every night.

So I hope, like Hector over at these venues during the day and in the evenings.

And it also stokes their interest in coming back, and wanting to be Cleveland part of their life.

But it also really does fit together.

This ecosystem and this piece of it was elusive.

I'm very optimistic that we're closing in on the final.

Final.

And it will be live soon.

I think it's live soon now, but we need more data in there and we'll get more data in there.

Yeah.

And I have to say, when the clubs came to Greg to say this is a problem, we have, he's the one that volunteered the Rock Hall and the IT department to fix this.

And that happens in a city like Cleveland.

Yeah, that doesn't happen in other bigger cities.

It happens because of the connections.

That happens because we'll also see each other out at a show.

It's that kind of thing.

And it's great too, because it's fun.

We talk music.

Music and comedy are are really what we're talking about.

And we've got Nick Costas, who is celebrating 40 years of Pickwick and frolic on on his fourth street.

We can, should and will do just a forum on the history of comedy in Cleveland and and Nick Costas is is is that writ large?

But, it's also why we called it.

Hello, Cleveland.

Lisa V, pull that out of Spinal Tap from the van going around.

So, you know, if we can have some fun.

Yes, absolutely.

Well, it's it is.

It's a neat community because you do see people and we are all fans.

We don't just try and do this during the day.

We do it, during the day, during the night.

And we do it on Saturdays and Sundays as well.

It's seven days a week, and we're fortunate to be able to work in the industry.

And most people that work in it feel that way.

But you do need to be able to make a living.

And that's really vital.

I can say yes quickly, but everybody sitting at the table ends up doing the work.

So thank you to them for being here.

And I think that's what it comes down to is that, you know, when like it strikes me the survey we're asking musicians what they need rather than from on high saying this is what we should do.

We because we are all music fans, we see firsthand.

Here are the problems.

How can we do this and band together?

I think that's, you know, all of us are out and about, and I think that does make a difference in terms of that.

We're seeing that firsthand and bringing that to the table.

Yeah.

And I'd say, you know, if when we're if we're going to do a music commission, let's listen to the musicians, let's they are the ones who are closest to the problems.

They're the ones who are going to know those solutions.

The musicians, the venues, the people who who are living this day to day.

And, you know, when I first came back to Cleveland, and this isn't unique to Cleveland, every place, folks want to have a big music festival, and that's great.

It's great to have a big party.

Greg already pointed out we have an 8% admissions tax here in the city of Cleveland, which which puts us behind the eight ball in terms of doing that anyway.

But to do something like that, you need to build organically over years.

You need to plan on losing money for for several years.

And that's that's not what the local music ecosystem needs.

We really need infrastructure support.

And and so that's my hope if we as we're moving forward towards a music commission that it's really focused on, on the people in the ecosystem because they know the problems, they know the most affordable solutions and that's where we can get the most bang for the buck.

If we make that kind of investment.

And like you mentioned earlier, there's also sounders also lighting.

There's production like it's even we have people thinking about better solutions there.

We even talk about recording studios huge ecosystem here and huge history here and so many things.

And vinyl pressing plant.

That's right.

Of course you have musicians making music.

You have students at the rap program at Tri-C that are out mixing, live concert audio and on major tours and doing it for all of our shows.

You do you have studios with Jim Stewart and a bunch of others that are terrific.

And then the pressing plant that's pressing, not just for locals, they're pressing for bands from all over the world.

And they're running now, I, I think they're running double and triple shifts.

They're really cranking, and it's just a treasure, that's quietly happening out.

It, under Sinclair.

Yeah.

So, there's a lot of neat stuff out there in the music census, brought that to the forefront.

It really showed that we were on par with the cities that everybody thinks about as music cities.

But the dots aren't all completely connected.

And the goal now is to make sure we connect those dots and talk about the.

It's not just for the love of music, it's jobs, it's economic impact.

It's quality of life, of course.

And all of that has a ripple effect on everything else that's happening.

Well, is there anything else either of you want to add?

Any points that we've not talked about yet?

Boy, any you kind of nailed it.

We could sit here forever and jump around, I think, from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame side.

We want to say thank you to Cleveland.

You know, the Clevelanders came together to build that museum.

The the plan has worked incredibly well.

If you're down by the lake, you'll see that we are now expanding.

We're adding a 50,000 square foot expansion.

We're going to be redoing our whole main exhibit hall, and there were cranes in the air at the lakefront in Cleveland, Ohio.

So, it's going we're going to open up our new expansion this fall, and we're continuing.

The museum is open every single day.

We have an unbelievable summer calendar with lots of live music on our plaza.

We have, these, these events and activities that piggyback on what else is happening around town.

And, the museum is, is is thriving thanks to Northeast Ohio.

We've not even talked about our economic impact.

And how we bring, you know, tens of thousands of, of Cleveland, a school, school students over to the museum each year, for free programs.

And, and how it all fits together.

But, this community really gets it, supports it, or wouldn't have been possible.

And we need to keep that momentum and that energy forward for the next 30 years of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but forward for the next, you know, 100 years of Cleveland.

This is an important part of our of our sector.

The survey, the music.

Census shows that and and let's, let's really help lift up this industry.

So, yeah, I mean, I would say there's some fun things to point out, like, we were talking about this in the green room.

Jake Kelly, who is an incredible, concert poster artist and graphic novelist.

He sort of, of his own volition has, has pursued this project, sort of in conjunction with Cleveland's birthday, because it's Cleveland to 30, I think.

But he is he is taking images from old, Cleveland Press and Plain Dealer.

Scene magazine, all of these old images and doing murals around town.

And he's done a few music ones, I think, Velvet Underground, it like, have an ad for that Devo and Devo.

These are these are some things.

This is the kind of thing that, with a little support, could really be an incredible thing across the city, because having those images, on the walls at all of the clubs around town and all of the record stores and the historical sites, when somebody comes in from out of town to see the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, to then have them out throughout the city, through the neighborhoods where a lot of this music happens, getting those pictures in front of those images.

But then seeing what's happening now, that's a very fun project that's happening out there.

Well, and then again, we have a lot of blank plywood walls right now.

Okay.

I got his number.

But then there are other things to talk about.

You know, a lot has been in the news about, new concert venues being built in town, and, and we might leave that for some of the questions, but what one thing I'll say from from the Neva state of live data, which wasn't sort of top line when when you look at the number of venues to the number of people like the venue density, Cleveland, Cleveland and Portland, Oregon were really among the top throughout the U.S.

in terms of, how many people per venue?

Cleveland's at something like there's a venue for every 24,000 people in in Cuyahoga County, nationally that averages like one for every 45,000.

And we're talking the independent venues here.

So, it's an interesting question.

One of the things we think about as independent venues, when we see some of these newer venues being built, is we understand it takes a Live Nation or an AEG at this point to build and to, book those bigger venues.

That's just the way the system is developed.

The, the, you know, the the independents can't scale up to that in the current environment.

And there's a there's a lawsuit happening right now, an antitrust suit happening in New York that, that several states, including Ohio, are still a party to.

But I'd like us to think in terms of if we're going to make investments in entertainment districts like that, let's include a parallel investment back into the local music ecosystem.

So if if we're if we're putting public dollars into, a new entertainment district, whether it's on the river or on the lake, or even our existing entertainment districts.

Let's think about what what can we give back to the music ecosystem that is has been here, is here, and is generating those jobs and, and, and those taxes and that revenue currently.

And so that's sort of my, my take on I I'll leave it to Live Nation AG to figure out whether there are enough people here to sell those tickets.

Well and but you know, to the bands that are going to fill those big venues need to start somewhere and where they're going to start probably small indie venues.

Yeah.

I, I think the challenges to the room go see live music this month.

Yep.

And go to, of course, go to the big shows because they're amazing artists.

But make sure you go to clubs as well.

And, don't just go to Netflix and take the easy way out, go out and see some live music.

Fantastic.

So I think we're about to begin the audience Q&A.

Thank you so much for everything.

This has been wonderful, very informative.

So for those of us joining our live stream audience, I'm Annie Zaleski, author and music journalist and the moderator for today's conversation.

I'm here with Greg Harris, president and CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, and Sean Watterson, co-owner of The Happy Dog and president of the Ohio chapter of the Independent Venue Association.

And we're discussing the history of rock and roll and the future of live music.

Today's forum is part of the City Clubs America 250 Ohio series celebrating the country's 250th birthday.

We welcome questions from everyone City Club members, guests and those joining via our live stream at City Club Dawg.

If you'd like to text a question, please text it to (330)541-5794.

That's (330)541-5794, and city club staff will try to work it into the program.

May we have the first question, please?

Hello.

Our first question is the test question is, for sure.

The happy dog is known for giving artists 100% of the door charge.

How has this worked out for you as a business?

If people would only drink water.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, you know, we we made that commitment when we started because we knew musicians had expenses.

And if we wanted to have good bands, they needed to be able to afford to make the music that they make.

So that's been our commitment from the start.

And we can do it at, at our level.

We do have to subsidize it.

You know, I looked at our at our income statement for last year this morning, for every dollar that we take in at the door, we are paying bands and the sound and door folks who work those those shows a dollar and a half.

So that's a big subsidy.

Come in, come in from the hot and the beer.

But it's important to us and we've managed to make it work.

So far.

We still have that commitment.

But it's why we're pursuing other, other avenues for support.

So one of the things that, we worked with State Senator Kent Smith on is, Senate Bill 186.

This is modeled after legislation that Texas adopted, that rebates smaller music and, and comedy clubs, the alcohol taxes that they pay on the theory that they are supporting the neighborhoods around them.

And if you've ever been to the Waterloo Arts District, you know it.

It's there because the beach land is drawing people to that neighborhood.

Same thing in Bird Town in Lakewood, same thing in Gordon Square.

The fact that Texas passed this, this legislation and that Tennessee was the second to pass it is encouraging because those are both red states.

And so, we're hopeful we've introduced the legislation, that sometime, whether it's this session or the next session, we'll have something like that here in Ohio.

And that that can help make up that, that difference.

Hi.

This just happened to me about a week ago, so I'm a little concerned.

I was a little angry when I figured it out.

I was on Facebook and I brought up this artist.

The music was nice.

Stroll in, the music comes up, and, I said, wow, this is a great artist, I love it, music is great.

I go and I look the name up and it's a computer generated AI person here to your bio in your emotions.

And I have to say, I'm guilty of going back to it and watching it, but I'm just worried that are we going to start seeing fake AI artist in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?

I mean, what has gone this is what makes me angry is because what you're talking about are real artists, you know?

So this is a big effect, I would think, to our future of real music.

You know, that's it's a very topical question, of course, with AI in every parts of our lives.

But I in, in, in music has been interesting.

The majority of songs posted to streaming services these days are AI songs.

Most of them are in volume.

However, one could argue in quality.

They're just a a sea of same sameness.

There isn't, a, And just to complicate things, there are songwriters that are using AI now.

Not so much to write lyrics, but to create demos quickly, to test out songs and test out styles.

And that's actually a positive because they get to create a demo quicker, and you'll find songwriters that will talk about that as a, as a plus.

So it's a little complicated of an issue.

But the, the AI generated music itself, I've yet to hear one that sounds more than bland and, standard.

It's scraping all the others and coming up with something like them.

So it's more of sound alikes.

And you like to believe that you people still go to the Cleveland Museum of Art to see the originals, and not the stuff that's hanging in a hotel lobby.

That was created as a derivative work that's just kind of there.

So I like to believe that, the originals do have a unique power.

As museum people, we believe that about our objects and our stories and our artifacts and as music people.

I can tell you that we like to hear the original artists playing their original songs and not some facsimile thereof.

So, I think it'll shake out.

But to date, there's I'm not aware of anything that's, that's blown the doors off it.

That's completely artificial.

There's something about the real emotion, the real, energy, the real human connection, that you get.

I will get smarter.

But for now, we are not.

We're not inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

But I try.

Well, I mean, I would say, you know, this is where the live experience.

Yeah.

And and we had this conversation as part of our prep.

You know, to me, being in the room is is a different experience than, than listening online.

I'm aware of some computer generated artists, not just the music, but, people trying to create these artists and to visually do the visuals.

You can be at home and you can feel like you have the real concert experience based on your VR headset.

And, and I know there's, there's an effort to do a lot more streaming of live shows, but there's something you don't have, at least I feel, and this may be generational, is you don't have that interaction with the other people around you.

Not to overstate it, but I think it's important for civil society and democracy to have people who don't know each other in the same room and experiencing something and realizing that that they can have connections.

To me, that's important.

What I don't know, is whether that's going to be as important for younger people who are finding community online.

Yeah.

I think with the recent court case in the, ruling against, some of the social media platforms, it's interesting because I think there may be a pivot back to more, real.

And I hear you on Life Live.

It's super important on making music.

That's a whole different thing, because there was a time when people thought drum machines were going to put drummers out of business, and they thought synthesizers were going to be this or be that.

Instead, they became tools for, creatives to make different art.

That speaks to people.

So it's, it's fascinating, but yeah, there's nothing like standing in a live room and, or people still come together in open stadiums and fields to hear music.

And we've done that for decades, if not centuries.

And it's really powerful.

Thank you.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as you all have told us, is one of the largest tourist attractions in all of Ohio.

And, recently, the, it's increased from half a million people to 600,000.

And, it has to do with Greg having more shows.

I think, I moved here 25 years ago, and I'm amazed when I go back to places I used to live.

Still, people say, oh, mistake on the lake, burning river or all that kind of stuff.

And I have to say to them, Cleveland is actually a wonderful place, and it's cleaned up a lot.

And, I don't think we're very good at marketing ourselves.

And I'm just wondering, is it possible to get Cleveland and the Rock Hall and all of these amazing smaller venues broadcast to the world by satellite radio?

Because radio used to be how we all heard music and now everybody's listening to whatever they're listening to.

But we used to have station identification, you We need we need more of that kind of stuff.

I think on these, whatever they call them, satellite radios.

Well, thank you.

The, Sirius XM station is currently not in our building because of our expansion in some other things, but, Rachel Steele, who you I think you were quoting is doing a program out of Cleveland is a great friend of the museum.

Getting the word out about Cleveland is very important.

And I will say that, there was a time when Clevelanders weren't great marketers of our own space.

And, the good people at Destination Cleveland really, change that narrative.

There was a time when only about 30% of Clevelanders would recommend to others that they should visit here.

Now it's more like 78%, I think, or something.

And so they're out there pushing our region or bringing big events, big programs, big activities, within our world, we promote this through, things like more like social media.

Now is for us a much bigger spot than, than radio.

And we have, you know, millions of followers.

We're always promoting Cleveland.

Currently our induction is ceremony.

Our induction nominees are out to the world, and we're pushing them, to the world to have a fan vote.

And we've had over 7 million fan votes.

And, it's, you know, hundreds of thousands of people are voting, and you can be sure they're going to get follow up about visiting Cleveland and about how great this town is and really marketing and pushing.

And our visitors don't just come to come to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

They go to the museum and they do something else.

They might go to a fourth street, they might go to, Gordon Square.

They might go to a concert at, you know, at the Q or, at Rocket Mortgage.

I'm sorry, or some other things, or a baseball game or a football game or a basketball game.

And so we really push and try and promote those.

One of the ways that we're getting the word out in a bigger way is themed weekends and really, really pushing.

And I guess it's worth mentioning that 80% of our visitors come from outside a six hour drive.

So to market to them in all of their little pockets that they are, really, digital is is a major way to reach them and to get them.

We go very, very hard on it.

Yeah.

And and I'd add, you know, this is part of, what Cuyahoga live and a music commission can do.

And we've got Chris Alvarado from from the county, in the back there.

Wanted to give Chris a shout out for, the county taking taking the lead on on doing some of this work.

Marketing doesn't happen in one channel.

And so part of the idea of, of music commission is, is getting that word out.

Like I was saying earlier work that the that Cleveland Rocks is doing, they are helping local artists with their streaming of songs and clips, and they're able to draw more attention to Cleveland based artists, which is also marketing Cleveland.

It can be if we if we wrap it into an overall strategy that can be that can be part of attracting people to Cleveland.

Because there were times where Seattle was a destination, the bands coming out of Seattle, there was the Seattle sound.

Cleveland is probably too diverse to have a Cleveland sound.

We've just got too many good things.

It's part of the problem.

But but that's all part of this marketing, overall marketing strategies.

You've got to reach people where they are and, and through the different channels.

And sometimes that's going to be through individual artists, sometimes that's going to be through, particular events or particular venues.

But we do need that added push to do the coordinated overall piece of it, because we can't simply ask Destination Cleveland to pick up that ball and run with that, too.

As a music community, we know what's what's great about what we're doing.

We just need to be able to have the resources to help communicate that out, work in partnership with Destination Cleveland on that.

But but we know we know how good it is.

We just need the the resources to be able to, to help amplify that.

And I will say to that, it takes people like you and anyone in this room and people who live here to also tell other people from out of town.

Yeah, you haven't been here in a while.

Maybe you should change your mind, you know, and then they come and visit and they see for themselves the Rock Hall.

Or they see local bands and they're like, wow, Cleveland actually is pretty cool.

And then they tell people, you know, so much marketing.

Now these days it's a 1 to 1 thing.

As digital it is.

And as big as social media is still like that personal relationship and that personal kind of guarantee stamp of approval still holds so much weight.

So that I think is the other piece of the puzzle is that all of us can also help talk about all the stuff with Cleveland in our own lives.

First time question after 30 years Council, can you identify yourself?

Sir?

Sean, it's about momentum.

You got.

You have the data.

Film commissions rocking it.

The music commission is in its infancy.

Infancy.

And we need to get it off the ground.

We need to make it sustainable.

Please tell us how you're doing that and how we can help you.

Well.

Marty, thank you for your support over all the years and for for continuing to be supportive of what it is we're doing.

We we have reached out to to the foundation community, and, and they've expressed an interest and and willingness if, if there are other partners in town, we've talked to some of those other partners and, and there's an interest there.

The thing we need to do, like you said, is keep the momentum up, because what we've seen over the years and it's not unique to Cleveland, there there is an excitement around music.

And people want to talk about music.

And every five years or so, people get ginned up being a bring a bunch of people together in a room to talk about music and to talk about the problems and what could we do to solve it.

And there's never any money to solve the problems, and it's always an all volunteer effort.

And what ends up happening is that energy dissipates and it's almost worse than than not having done it in the first place.

Because once that energy in that trust dissipates, then there is a recovery period before you can take another stab at it.

So we've put so much into the research in the music census in the state of live.

We do have momentum with the county, with the foundation community.

But we really need to make this happen in, in this next 12 months.

And so anybody who is interested in supporting this concept of a music commission, we're going to need that support.

We're going to need that initial investment to get this up and going.

You can find me at The Happy Dog by now is easy to find.

It just show what cities have music commissions because it's it's it's a great example of why.

Yeah.

Well, just down the road, Columbus has had a music commission.

Columbus did a music census.

They have they have between a half and three quarters of what we have in Cleveland, and it's closer to half.

There are other cities.

There are other models.

Some music commissions are very focused on, on entertainment districts.

But the model that's emerging and I'm, I'm in the middle of this looking at this and in cities across the U.S., but also what's happening in the UK and Australia and, and it's a newer movement, but it, it's also a place where Cleveland can lead.

Thank you.

Well done.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

Annie Zaleski, Greg Harris and Sean Watterson for joining us at the City Club today.

I'm Cynthia Connolly, director of programing here at the City Club.

And forums like this one are made possible thanks to generous support from individuals like you.

You can learn more about how to become a guardian of free speech at City club.org.

next week at the City Club.

On Thursday, April 9th, we will be with Doctor Desmond Blackburn, CEO and President of National Facing History and ourselves to discuss how students can engage in civil civic discourse in the classroom and beyond.

Eric Gordon, former Siemens DCO will moderate that on Friday, April 10th, will be joined by Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University, and his commitment to defending academic freedom and resisting attempts to silence dissent in higher education.

You must treat her with yes, you will moderate.

You can learn more about this forum and others at Cityclub.org.

Thank you once again to Annie, Greg and Sean, and to our members in front of the City Club.

This forum is adjourned.

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