Welcome to the Lafayette Music Census
In Lafayette, we take our music and our culture seriously. It’s important to make sure we keep our rich heritage of music, especially the people, businesses, and actions at the core of it, thriving. The Lafayette Music Census is a community-led initiative to gain a better understanding of the current strengths, opportunities and needs of the Lafayette music community. A keystone of this initiative is conducting a Music Census that captures key information about our music ecosystem to help city leaders and the community make better informed, data-driven decisions to support and grow our music ecosystem . The census asks questions specific to the realities of music and live entertainment workers, creators, educators, venues, festivals, and industry including general information about their demographics and occupation types as well as their perspective on issues such as economic opportunity, professional development, affordability, music-friendly regulations, funding support, culture, and belonging. With a deeper understanding of the Lafayette music ecosystem, this initiative aims to gather, grow, and showcase our music talent and offerings while guiding our city’s efforts to develop this vibrant part of our community.
This initiative is being led by the Parish of Lafayette, Lafayette Economic Development Authority, and Lafayette Convention and Visitor Commission. The Census is administered by Sound Music Cities, a civic-oriented and leading provider of music ecosystem studies and music census work.
When is this taking place?
The Census will open in October 2024. It will be live for three weeks, and during that time we are calling on anyone (18+) that identifies as working as a part of the Lafayette music ecosystem/industry/scene to participate. Please plan to share your voice!
Who is included?
If you’re involved in the music industry in any capacity, your input is invaluable! We encourage participation from musicians, venue owners, music teachers, producers, sound engineers, and more. Even if your work is more administrative than creative, your skills and commitment are worthy of acknowledgement and support.
The census survey area is Lafayette Parish, which includes the cities of Lafayette, Broussard, Carencro, Duson, Scott and Youngsville. Even if you live outside the Lafayette Parish, but work in Lafayette Parish’s music ecosystem, please take the Census.
FAQs
Music community leaders here in Lafayette and around the world have identified the importance of having measurable information about people who do music related work to provide them with better support. The results of this census will be made available to the thousands of music industry professionals, nonprofits, and government agencies in our area, as well as to the countless music patrons and consumers who are the lifeblood of our music ecosystem.
The census asks questions specific to the realities of music workers, including general information about their demographics and occupation types as well as their perspective on issues such as how to develop our music ecosystem, workforce development, how government and community can better support the music ecosystem, livability of our community for music workers, as well as the culture and belonging of our music ecosystem.
Yes. The census does not collect any personal identifiers or IP addresses. Any individual responses highlighted in the published results will be attributed as "Census Respondent."
From 10-15 minutes, depending on your respondent category. (Creative, Venue/Presenter/Festival/Promoter, or Industry) and whether you type in lengthy comments. 13 minutes is the average time spent on the census.
Oddly no, even though your continued support and interest is probably the most important benefit that a music scene can hope for, this Census is aimed at people working in music in any capacity instead of fans. On behalf of all the tireless workers in music who create what you love, we appreciate and thank you. If you know of any people working in music, please encourage them to take the census so that we can understand and strengthen the music scene.
Those working in the music industry in ANY capacity who are 18 years or older and living in the Lafayette, LA, area. If you work as part of the Lafayette music ecosystem, even if you live outside the Lafayette MSA, please take the Census.
You should participate in the census if you contribute any type of music-related work, with or without compensation, and you believe your skills and commitment are worthy of acknowledgment and support. This includes part-time work, rarely paid work or volunteer work, and work that is more administrative than creative.
To keep the data analysis manageable, we must limit the census to one entry per person, which means you must select one primary identity (creative, venue owner, or industry). That said, we know that most music people work in more than one area, so you will also have an opportunity within the census to provide info on work you do in other identity categories.
No. You can use a desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. Note that if you wish to leave and finish your response later, you will need to use the same device.
Currently the plans are to release the data in the spring of 2025 through a series of reports, online dashboards, and community events.