I (and so many others) have been excluded from Great Southern Nights. Here's how to fix it.

PREFACE: Please note, I’m not looking for advice or suggestions. I am talking about how Great Southern Nights has perpetuated the music industries status quo of opportunities and career growth paths hidden behind opaque systems, combined with vague advice about how to navigate those systems.

Have you seen the artist and venue lineups that are gradually being released for the 2022 Great Southern Nights Concert Series? There are so many cool people playing in so many cool places! I would love to participate in the concert series, but for the second time I’ve been unintentionally excluded from this opportunity due to systemic reasons and honestly? it’s not good enough.

For those of you who don’t know, Great Southern Nights is a NSW music series created in response to the pandemic to “reinvigorate the music industry” after we (every musician) lost every gig overnight to the ongoing pandemic. This initiative has brought some much needed work and income to venues and musicians but like many “big official productions” it’s fallen into some systemic traps that have kept musicians like me from participating.

So, what do I mean by musicians like me? I’m an “emerging artist”* who’s professional contacts mostly comprise of other emerging artists. I get most of my gigs and opportunities via the tedious process of cold emailing and an unhealthy amount of hope. I’ve invested time and money in learning how to be my own photographer, videographer, video editor, graphic designer and copy writer because I can’t afford to pay someone else to do it to the standard the industry requires. I have a small team (a manager/career coach) helping me behind the scenes with booking and grants, but I still do a lot of my own admin/negotiating. I am also disabled with limited capacity, which adds further complications to my career.

*I really dislike this term, but it’s the best one I’ve got.

The first year of Great Southern Nights left me confused. They popped up the first version of their webpage inviting both artists and venues to submit expressions of interest, which I did, then I waited patiently to hear more information about how I could get involved as a performer. Suddenly there was an influx of gig announcements, which didn’t make sense because I was still waiting to hear about the process for performer consideration?
This second year has left me feeling defeated. When I heard they were running this again, I got in early asking how I could get involved as an artist. This is the reply I got “The Venue Call Out available on the Great Southern Nights' website does not include an artist EOI. As the list of participating venues will be announced at a later date* - we encourage you to contact your local (or favoured) venue to enquire if they are applying to host a Great Southern Nights gig. Venues will be programming their own live music gigs as per their usual operations – in line with any COVID-19 restrictions of course. ”

I’m still trying to pinpoint why this email upset me. Perhaps it was the very professional acknowledgment dealing with artists seems to have been put in the too hard basket. Perhaps it was the acknowledgement that the process of performing in Great Southern Nights would happen in the secret network of inboxes I’ve been excluded from for 10 years. Or perhaps it was the assumption that I’m in the know enough to know which venues were planing on participating, and I wouldn’t have to send a hundred emails to figure it out.

From a logistical standpoint I get it. There are an overwhelming amount of musicians vying for not enough resources. It’s why I accidentally took 6 months off my music blog. If the Great Souther Nights team were going to deal with all the musicians it would be an immense undertaking, however, running an event series to “reinvigorate the music industry” needs to actively include ALL musicians. By making the participation process opaque, they have excluded any musician that doesn’t already have access.

Here are 3 things Great Southern Nights could do to better include Emerging artists:

1) Include a process that gives artists with few contacts a pathway to connect with eligible venues. This could be done by publicly releasing the venue list, so artists can contact participating venues directly.

2) Create and enforce quota’s that increase the prevalence of emerging artists and artists of marginalised identities* in the concert series. (*there may have already been a movement behind the scenes to make sure those who are Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, culturally and linguistically diverse, LGBTQIA+ are appropriately represented. I don’t have the capacity to analyse the lineup)

3) Work with venues to create shows that specifically highlight and include emerging artists (and preferably do this via a really accessible and obvious application process). Provide these shows with extra resources and marketing support? You could literally change someone’s career overnight.

Great Southern Nights could set themselves up as a concert series that launches careers and mentors those who have drive, passion and talent but have found themselves forever lost in a career based wild goose chase. Great Southern Nights have the option to set a new status quo and actively include all musicians. If they do this again, I really hope they do better, because emerging Australian Musicians deserve it.

About the outfit: Well, this is a change from my regular old outfit posts! These are actually my new music artist photos! I built the set from scratch in a panic one afternoon when an outdoor music video shoot was almost moved indoors due to weather. We didn’t need it, but now I have this awesome set!
I built the backdrop using a 5x2 meter curtain, painted to vaguely look like sunset clouds. I built the cloud lamps out of baking paper, sticky tape, toy stuffing, led fairy lights, macrame rope and white thread.
I did my own makeup and wore a dress I bought 10 years ago from an indie designer.
I think these are some of the best photos I’ve ever taken!

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FINANCIAL REALISM SEGMENT!

I’m trying to be more open about my finances/the time/money and energy that goes into this creative work. I’ve reached a point where I no longer have the energy to work creatively and work a day job. Many hours of labour go into a post like this - I sewed the pants, which took me a day, the photos took 1 hour to shoot, 3 hours to edit/upload.

Writing this post in particular took 1 hour, and the social media management and promotion takes an additional hour. my website is with Squarespace which also costs $$

If you’d like to support my endeavour to make this sort of work my “real job” (this includes my music and upcoming sewing videos) you can do so for the price of a coffee by using the form to your left. If you’d like to support me AND get a thing in return for your $$, consider buying my music on BANDCAMP or hopping over to my ONLINE STORE and buying a print, bow, music ETC :)

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