Strategic Focus : Urban Stewardship : San Jose Live

San Jose Live capitalizes on the participatory and ethnic boundary-crossing character of live music performance to connect with Silicon Valley’s diverse demographic and create a dynamic cultural scene. This leverages San Jose’s exceptional weather for year-round festivals and outdoor entertainment and expands the number of facilities while adding breadth of programming opportunities for live music. 

 

San Jose Live Goals:

  • Create diverse opportunities for young and emerging local musicians to perform live in downtown San Jose
  • Build online and mobile social media resources to connect interested audiences to the diversity of music offerings
  • Remove barriers for successful live music programming through changes to city ordinances
  • Build the capacity of local venues, educators, nonprofits, commercial businesses and other stakeholders to deliver live music
  • Optimize programming across various venue sizes from local clubs to the Civic Auditorium to the Arena
  • “Thicken” our strength in festival-related programming to include more local venues and year-round programming of live music

 

Progress to Date: San Jose’s live music scene has seen renewed signs of life as Silicon Valley popular cultural has taken a DIY (do it yourself) turn towards music making and consumption. Two years ago the Responsible Hospitality Institute completed a study that identified live music as a key strategy for creating a vibrant downtown San Jose. Since that time, 1stACT and partners have established broad consensus around the live music strategy and are beginning implementation of a plan to “revive” the local live music scene. The City has changed its approach to nighttime entertainment, including policing and permitting and is now supporting small clubs that are conducive to live music. 1stACT seed-funded Left Coast Live, a two-year old festival that highlights local musicians, the diversity of local music, and related issues such as the DJ culture, the technology of music and the future of music creation and consumption. Additionally, 1stACT helped the San Jose Jazz Festival to broaden their “club crawl” and to create the Hedley Club Jazz Jam, which has become a regular gathering of San Jose’s jazz musicians and fans.

If you have any questions or would like more information, please direct your inquiry to Brendan Rawson, Director of Cultural Participation at brawson@1stact.org