URGENT news from the Make Music New York office

The Make Music New York team was putting the finishing touches on the eleventh consecutive edition of our annual music holiday when we got word that we will not be receiving an expected funding grant of $20,000. Since receiving this news two weeks ago, we have exhausted every resource to cut this 20K gap in half and now are just $10,000 shy of our goal.

Now, for the first time in our eleven-year history, we are appealing directly to our artists, fans and all NYC music lovers to come together, step up, and contribute to our remaining $10,000 need. Because although the festival is free to the public, it is not free to produce.

This is not a typical appeal for support to help Make Music New York launch a special project or take on a new initiative. We have very real and immediate expenses of $10,000 to cover before the end of the month, specifically:

We need to secure an additional 145 sound permits at $45 each, for a total cost of $6,525.

When a Make Music New Yorker musician wants to present an amplified concert, we must secure a sound permit from the City of New York to make their wish come true. We have already procured half of the permits required for June 21st, but still need an additional 145 permits for outdoor locations in all five boroughs. Help us keep the festival plugged in!

We also need to raise $1,706 to maintain our general liability insurance coverage.

We know that is about the most uncool sounding expense imaginable, and it is likely the last thing on the minds of our artists and fans.  That’s as it should be! But we cannot safely and legally present over 1,000 free, outdoor concerts without this required coverage in place.

Lastly, we need $2,000 to print our 2017 Make Music New York program guides.

Thanks to innovative media partnerships and social media resources, Make Music New York manages to publicize our annual festival with very little marketing overhead. But we do have one highly popular marketing piece that comes with real costs: 50,000 program guides distributed citywide that help fans map out their music day on June 21st, acknowledge the thousands of participating musicians and bring advanced visibility to the public at the grassroots level.

The day-long Make Music New York celebration is inclusive, ambitious, unpredictable and fun–and we hope that you rightly take pride in our collective achievements over the past ten years. Please take a moment right now to invest in music makers of all ages, backgrounds and skill levels and to bring free music to neighborhoods all across NYC. 
Thank you and please help to spread the word to all of your friends!