Austin News

Austin businesses are facing permanent impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic, with a recent survey showing that 90% of all of the city's live music venues will likely close by the fall if no economic changes are made. 

The survey showed that 62% of music venues believe they will not survive four more months or less with shutdowns, Austin Monitor reported. The survey, conducted by the Austin Chamber of Commerce, also showed that 83% of venues have laid off full-time employees, 79% have suspended payments and 67% are paying less than half their rent. 

The venues are among the most at-risk businesses to close due to the pandemic, with many likely to be permanently closed by Halloween of this year. 

Rebecca Reynolds | https://www.musicvenueallianceaustin.com/

“Live music venues are far and away skyrocketing to the top of every category in terms of hardest hit, imminent closure, layoffs, trickle-down effects to the rest of the economy in the form of taxes and vendor contracts,” Rebecca Reynolds, head of the Music Venue Alliance in Austin, told Austin Monitor. 

Music venues, along with other small businesses, can apply for grants to help them continue operating. Grants up to $40,000 are being awarded through the city's economic aid funding. 

“We’re trying to articulate that we don’t need the whole fund, but here’s what we need and here’s some places we can get the money from to keep venues on ice for three months,” Reynolds told Austin Monitor. “We were very pleased to see the survey results reflect what we’ve been feeling out here in the community.”

But Reynolds says the city is ultimately deciding which music venues survive based on those that receive, or don't receive, funds. 

“Council landed on the idea that the federal [Paycheck Protection Program] and Small Business Administration loans would be sufficient, but those covered March, April and May if they were lucky,” she told Austin Monitor. “Now that we’re moving toward August, that money is spent.”

Cody Cowan, executive director of the Red River Cultural District, said the only way music venues will be able to survive is if disaster relief loans and grants keep coming in. 

“That’s really the only way that small businesses and especially independent music venues will have any chance of still being open by Halloween," Cowan told Austin Monitor. “I have hope for another round of [federal] aid just on a pragmatic basis, that if the federal government doesn’t provide relief then we’re going to see a tipping point economically that there’s no coming back from as a society."