Rockin’ The Vote Even More: Music Industry Prepares For Election Day With Launch Of Music Votes Coalition

No matter which side of the political spectrum you fall on, the recent debate between U.S. President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump — which at one point devolved into a petty argument between the two men over who was a better golfer — left many voters feeling freaked out about the upcoming presidential election or perhaps just jaded about our country’s future. But with less than four months to go until the election, this is precisely the time for those working in the music industry to use the power of their platform to increase voting participation.

“Getting involved makes this stuff anxiety reducing no matter how you feel about the politics,” says Emily White, a founding partner at Collective Entertainment and the CEO/co-founder of non-profit #iVoted. “I’ve dedicated my life to this for the past seven years, and so it allows me to not freak out because I know we’re doing the work and I know we can provide solutions for people to get involved in a seamless manner.”

The non-partisan #iVoted helps increase voter turnout by producing data-driven concerts on election night and during early voting periods that let in fans who show a selfie from outside their polling place or at home with an unmarked ballot. It is also one of the industry’s nonprofits that recently teamed up to form Music Votes, described as the first-ever industry-wide voter engagement coalition. The coalition was announced in June and was assembled and led by the Music Sustainability Alliance (MSA).

Kurt Langer, who sits on the boards of MSA and EARTH/PERCENT, a music industry climate fund, along with leading the consulting firm The Impact Department, said in a statement that Music Votes is focused on “simplifying and streamlining how the music industry at large can have the most impact in this high stakes election.”

Along with MSA and #iVoted, Music Votes nonprofit partners include Black Voters Matter, DJs at the Polls, Grounded.org, HeadCount, Hip Hop Caucus, Music Declares Emergency US, NOISE FOR NOW, Pizza to the Polls, RAMPD (Recording Artists and Music Professionals with Disabilities), REVERB, Rock The Vote, ShowUp, Support+Feed, The Ally Coalition, TradesForce, VoteRiders and Well Dunn Foundation.

The broad coalition is focused on three key ways to increase voting: voter registering (“choosing a voter registration organization to join a tour, be at the venue, or provide digital tools for your audience”); ensuring that voters have an accepted form of identification to cast a ballot (with the help of nonpartisan organization VoteRiders); and turnout (“through messaging campaigns, giveaways and data-driven concerts”).

Asked for her take on why the music industry should care about voting, White tells Pollstar, “I spoke about this at the Music Managers Forum a few weeks ago. It’s like, ‘No matter how you feel about the candidates and the presidential election, did you or your artists benefit from the $16 billion dollars NIVA secured from the government so independent venues could stay in business during the pandemic? Do you care that the United States is one of four countries in the world that does not pay artists on performance royalties for recordings? Every other country in the world does except for the U.S., Iran, China and North Korea. Do you care about AI and what is happening with artists rights and their likeness?’”

White adds that Toyota Arena in Ontario, California, will be hosting a yet-to-be-announced #iVoted concert and Director of Booking Denise Gonzales has spoken about how increased voter turnout in the area isn’t going to affect the presidential race but it can bring about change on a local level, including fixing potholes.

“Voting is just a really sacred right and it affects everything we do from music to potholes to who leads the Free World,” White says.

Music Votes is providing direct resources for non-partisan issue area-expertise in topics such as Climate Change, Disability Culture, LGBTQIA+ rights, Racial and Reproductive Justice.

The coalition is also working with Johns Hopkins University’s SNF Agora Institute to provide custom data optimization to increase participants’ effectiveness.

“We’ve always booked per the data on the top trending artists in each location. So because of that, MIT has shown that #iVoted concerts increased turnout by 7% whereas traditional get out the vote efforts do so by .5 to 1%” White says.

“And I totally credit the data with that because what people are listening to in Milwaukee is different from Grand Rapids. So that’s what we’ve done for the past few years. But then what we did with Johns Hopkins is we analyzed that data on the top trending artists in each location and compared those artists’ unique fan demographics to local voter files to determine which artists increased voter turnout and really civic impact the most. And the results are really fascinating … for example, Taylor Swift has the most listeners in Atlanta, but Drake, 21 Savage and Future can turn out more voters because they have more historically low turnout fans.”

Wasserman Music is one of the music agencies that is working with Music Votes.

Denise Melanson VP, Social Impact & Sustainability at Wasserman Music, tells Pollstar, “Wasserman Music is excited to join the Music Votes coalition alongside these amazing nonprofit leaders in the industry. Encouraging civic engagement is a priority for us, not just during a Presidential election year, but ongoing and down ballot. We do this both internally and externally, working with great partners like Headcount, #iVoted and When We All Vote, by engaging our clients and staff in register to vote and plan for the polls campaigns, providing voting and civic education resources and empowering folks to use their voice through our #KnowBeforeYouGo campaign.”

Wasserman clients who have HeadCount at upcoming shows include Noah Kahan, Tyler Childers, Dave Matthews Band, ODESZA, Lake Street Dive, Jason Mraz, The String Cheese Incident, Black Pumas and many others.

Stay tuned for #iVoted concerts to be announced soon, with White noting that they’re holding over 100 venues. Along with partnering with venues on specific #iVoted concerts, the nonprofit has also had promoters set aside tickets for #iVoted entry.

“The data-driven concerts are the most impactful. But any promoter that wants to partner with us the way they have in the past or they’re just hearing about this we can make anything work,” White says. “Venues have a lot of power and we’re really excited to help them organize for any promoter and venue that’s interested in that — whether that’s voting or non-partisan causes, we got your back.”

Plus, #iVoted is partnering with Grounded “on a double impact model that’s getting folks to vote and also helping the environment — and getting them green and clean jobs.”