Make Local Music Promotional Campaigns Easy and Painless for Venues

Nashville Business Journal: "The Nashville Convention and Visitors Bureau is launching a new advertising and marketing campaign to brand Nashville as the home to all genres of music - country, bluegrass, contemporary Christian, jazz and more.

"Deana Ivey, senior vice president of marketing for NCVB, spoke of the campaign at a meeting of the Nashville Advertising Federation on Sept. 27. She says the multi-year 'Music Calls Us Home' campaign is an important step in the branding of Nashville, a task to which the organization has devoted much effort since it rolled out the Music City Branding initiative in 2005.

"'We've done a good job at branding Nashville as Music City," Ivey says. "But it's a double edged sword...because people think we're just country music.'"
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What I like about this campaign is that it has developed ways to promote local music which should be relatively easy for venues to buy into. Here are some of the projects that fall under the Music City Brand Initiative:
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Brand Story [of Nashville’s diverse music heritage] and Brand Tool Kit for businesses [including brand story, suggestion booklet of how to incorporate music into business, CDs, window decals, etc]

Strategic partners: Coca-Cola · Southwest Airlines · Hartmann · Tractor Supply · Jack Daniel’s · XM Satellite Radio

New Pole banners – displayed throughout the city, will now have a consistency of look

The Branding of Demonbreun Street from the Music Row Roundabout to the Schermerhorn Symphony Center as “The Music Mile”

A new Wayfinding signage program – system of signs in strategic locations around the city will assist people in finding attractions and places of interest and emphasize our musical heritage

New “Live Music Venue” signs – these signs will be offered to establishments that provide live music 4 or more days a week. (NCVB will create maps and brochures so tourists can easily navigate the city's music scene.)

The Visitor Information Center at the Gaylord Entertainment Center will be remodeled into a wireless internet café, with outdoor seating and a stage for live music

In partnership with XM Satellite Radio, a monthly live-to-tape show on XM featuring Nashville songwriters, with the working title “Music City Connection: The Heroes Behind the Hits”
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Having watched a number of good ideas related to Denver's music community fall apart because too many people criticize and not enough offer to help, I think that the initial local music scene push should come from one person or entity committed to seeing it through. Lots of people will jump on the bandwagon after there are signs of success, but initially there tend to be lots of naysayers and it's better to have a program which they cannot discourage or derail.