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fairplaypittsburgh · 4 years

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We Bid You FairWell

Dear Musicians, Venue Owners, Live Music Enthusiasts, and Industry Professionals:

We want you to be the first to know that after much consideration of Fair Play’s role in the music ecosystem, we have decided to let it go dormant during this time of nationwide challenges and transitions. Fair Play was primarily a safe public forum for you to evaluate the live music scene in the Pittsburgh region. We wanted to know how things were going, and we hoped to empower actions towards equity, excellence, and sustainability.

With your involvement we successfully completed our initial goal. You shined a bright light on the realities facing musicians in the 21st century, our physical places, and the many players who make our broader music community what it is. You told us what you needed to thrive and we put that in our high-level summary as a community roadmap.

Now, with the pandemic, with the reduced ability to perform in person, and the closure of many beloved venues, the local scene needs to adapt. We don’t know how it will develop, survive and thrive but we know the work we've done still has many relevant insights.

Here's What's Changing in the Next Few Weeks

All scheduled Fair Play Shop Talk events have been cancelled.

The Fair Play Facebook Group will be archived Monday, September 14. Pop over and let everyone know what you’ve been working on and where folks can find you. Once the group is archived, you are still able to access all of the information.

We encourage you to stay connected to other music advocacy Facebook groups; we recommend the Pittsburgh Music Ecosystem Project.

The Fair Play website remains live for the foreseeable future as an archived free resource of our meetings and research, which is open to all. We hope you will re-visit, get inspired by the photos, ideas, and playlists, and launch any of the creative solutions or programs available. It's yours to use.

Thank You and Farewell

Many people made this project happen and their passion and professionalism was a joy to work with. Here are the liner notes:

First and foremost, we thank you for the years of engagement at meetings, in personal conversation, and online. You made FairPlay what it is.

We thank the Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council (GPAC) — especially Christiane Leach, Artist Relations Manager - for giving enthusiastic and wise administrative oversight to this project since its inception. It would not have happened without her. GPAC will continue to host Fair Play information on their website. Thank you!

We thank Lauren DeMichiei for her incredible initiative and skill at design, creating Spotify playlists featuring Pittsburgh music, leading Shop Talk, and keeping the FB group activated. If you are interested in continuing efforts with musician advocacy in Pittsburgh, Lauren has some irons in the fire. Definitely get in touch with her.

Both GPAC and Lauren were instrumental in providing financial support to keep the project going and we thank them for their generosity.

Additional thanks to all the venues that hosted our meetings, to Randall Coleman, Kristy Strickler, and Heather Mull for the excellent photography, RJ Kozain and JuliAnne Wright for moderating the Facebook group in recent months, and Traci Jackson for her deft ability to help Fair Play organizers sift through all the data to create our summary document which now serves as a guide for future activities. Haven't read it? Go HERE.

Thank you to the amazing line-up of folks who took part or agreed to take part in Shop Talk! A quick shout out to: Jeff Betten, Justin Strong, Allison Kacmar Richards, Sondra Woodruff, Tim Wolfson, Gordon Nance, Bob McCutcheon, Jimmy Hoyson, Tom Brieding, Brian Buckley, Jordan Snowden, and Katie Oltmanns.

Finally, we want to thank Heather Kropf for being nuts enough to start this whole thing by inviting us to take stock of our work and our selves as a community, and enticing us to publicly imagine best case scenarios.

We have loved this project and hope it has brought you some value over the past five years.

Take care of yourself.

Heather Kropf | Christiane Leach | Lauren DeMichiei

F a i r P l a y P i t t s b u r g h

#fairplay #pittsburgh #pittsburghmusic #music #livemusic #greaterpittsburghartscouncil

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