I’ve been nagging for years to get busy and use music as a promotional tool for the city.

Sometimes—especially in New Orleans—things take a lot of time to accomplish.

Obviously, the music club operators want to promote Frenchmen Street as a music district. They’ve taken a lot of time and put a lot of effort and money into creating a local- and visitor-friendly street that’s music-centric.

I’ve always operated in the mode of creating partnerships with other businesses and people so we devise a win-win strategy for everyone. It’s the only way to create something good for the community, as well as a sustainable business model.

Music Row in New Orleans?

This tactic can work in promoting the city’s music: I was recently involved in a meeting with reps from the French Market Corporation and the Louisiana State Museum to discuss performances and possible promotional ideas, when we all came to the conclusion that we should be coalescing our efforts to create a larger music district that could involve more businesses: the lower French Market; the Old U.S. Mint—which now has the performance area for the National Jazz Historical Park’s lectures and informances on its third floor, and a second-floor museum that currently houses the Preservation Hall exhibit; and Frenchmen Street.

The idea is so simple, we wondered why we hadn’t thought of it before: let’s brand the area as a music district so that all the entities can benefit from the traffic that all three bring to the table. This could simply mean signs placed at strategic locations to lead people back and forth through the area.

I love this idea. How about you? Comments?