“We don’t have enough information of our consumption and emissions on a small-scale business like jazz in the Nordics.”
Nordic Jazz Network listening to Markus Nordenstreng at Hakaniemen Luova Kulma in Helsinki. Photo: Erika Luoto.
FIRST NETWORK ASSEMBLY IN HELSINKI
The new Nordic jazz promotor network met the first time in Helsinki on January 27–28, 2020.
The Nordic jazz organizations, FIH Music School, JazzDanmark, Jazz Finland, Norsk jazzforum and Svensk Jazz, invited 12 club, festival and venue promotors from their respective countries to form the core for a new network. The network aims to bring the countries’ jazz professionals together to spar the development of the jazz industry in the Nordic states.
Live jazz business is not an island, when it comes to today’s quality demands by the audiences, funders and (geo-)political and (socio-)cultural strategies. Also the culture industry and organizations play an important role in spreading knowledge and setting examples in environmental sustainability and social inclusion. Creating new standards and adopting improved policies requires often a change in thinking, and finding new solutions for resourcing too. This is in a nutshell what the promoter network tries to accomplish in its pilot phase 2020–2021: a Theory of Change model for Nordic live jazz.
The network will determine what kind of change they wish to make on live jazz industry, their own businesses and/or the region/community, and what impacts they expect to achieve. For this they will create a strategy roadmap, and evaluation parameters for the results. This is created by sharing knowledge and best practices with their peers, hearing experts for more information, and studying the research data and results of other projects on the culture sector.
The concrete activities that the network will implement the strategy on, are programming a showcase and seminar event in Helsinki in December 2020, and planning sustainable tours for Nordic bands in 2021.
The first meeting of this high-aiming initiative took place in Helsinki on January 27–28. The first day of the assembly was about approaching some of the aspects of sustainability in live event production and programming, and getting to know a little bit about how our Nordic colleagues run their businesses.
The discussions on Monday addressed environmental sustainability in event production and equity and diversity among professional artists. On Tuesday the network had their first meeting and took first steps to greener tour planning and inclusive programming of the December showcase.