Grammys & MusiCares

Here’s the good news: In 2012, the music economy in New Orleans was booming. More than nine million people visited the city, spending $6 billion. More than 76% of visitors were in town on vacation. Compared to the year before, spending in bars and nightclubs jumped 10.4% and spending on entertainment increased 9%. Musicians played nearly 30,000 gigs.

But, here’s the bad news: In 2012, professional musicians in New Orleans made an average of $17,800, with about 40% earning less than $10,000.

It helped us as a local music community really turn our eyes back on ourselves in a way that made us more critical thinkers about how we can be more successful. Sometimes you need somebody on the outside coming to redirect your thoughts in certain ways.

Reid Wick

The Recording Academy

Our designers spent two days and long nights immersed in the city’s music scene, interviewing musicians, managers, record label executives, festival organizers, club owners, radio station deejays, buskers, social service agency executives and city officials — some of whom were locals and others of whom were in town for New Orleans’ Jazz Fest or a conference of U.S. mayors.

So why weren’t musicians sharing in the spoils? As with every problem in New Orleans, there were a lot of theories related to greed, corruption, racism and ineptness. But the designers pieced together two novel elements: most artists didn’t like to ask for money and most audience members didn’t think of giving it to them.

There were programs in New Orleans designed to teach musicians how to be better businesspeople, but they presumed musicians wanted to learn. Musicians, like most artists, pursued their craft in part to escape conventions, like negotiating contracts and managing accounts. Venue owners paid most musicians little to nothing, leaving musicians dependent on tips. But most musicians never asked for tips, only passively offering an open horn case or plastic tip jar for anybody moved to contribute.

Concurrently, audience members didn’t see it as their responsibility to support musicians. Unlike the time-honored practice of tipping waitstaff and bartenders, there was no cultural expectation to tip musicians — even in a city defined by music.

Our designers’ answer was “Tip the Band,” a collection of tactics and tools to encourage and enable visitors to support musicians. One calculation found that just five dollars from every vacationing tourist would boost the average annual income of New Orleans’ musicians by $10,000.

Our designers were Bill DeRouchey, Rob Chappell (Neighborland), Jodi Leo, Carolyn Chandler, Brian Winters, and Tanarra Schneider (all of Manifest Digital), Lee-Sean Huang (Purpose), Mark Wills (Hattery), Brynn Evans (Google), Ryan Frietas (About.me), Mark Trammell (Twitter), and Jason Kunesh (Obama for America).

They were led, informed, inspired, and provoked by Al Herbach (Strategiz), Katy Klassman (The Curated Group), Susan Brecker, Scott Aiges (New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation), Reid Wick (The Recording Academy), and John Kenny (Draftfcb).

The team produced and shared a detailed report for the Grammys and MusiCares including additional partners and stakeholders important to the work.

In early 2013, a hackathon was held as part of Super Bowl celebrations in New Orleans, and a mobile app component of Tip the Band was launched under another name by a startup company. The app was recognized at the hackathon and later went on to compete for venture capital at the SXSW conference held in Austin, Texas.

At the Interactions 2013 conference, UX for Good received the prestigious People's Choice Award for the impact of our work.

Having so many talented UX designers converge in our city to think deeply about issues affecting the lives of working musicians – and to propose innovative solutions – was a great learning experience. One of the concepts developed during those sessions – a mobile payments platform for audiences to give tips to performers – has really taken root. If anyone has the opportunity to have UX for Good come to their town, I would simply say: ‘Do it!

Scott Aiges

Director of Programs, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation