Thank you for your interest in Chicago music and the City's proposed event promoter ordinance.  The Chicago Music Commission has been working on behalf of Chicago's music community with the ordinance’s drafters, the Department of Business Affairs and Licensing (DBA) and Alderman Gene Schulter (47th Ward), Chairman of the License and Consumer Protection Committee, to voice our concerns about the ordinance and to try to have it changed to make it work for promoters, venues, residents and fans alike.  This process continues.

Right now, the ordinance is not yet moving.  The City, under Chairman Schulter’s guidance, has made some significant amendments to it since this past April when it last surfaced, but those changes have yet to be adopted by the License and Consumer Protection Committee.  We expect that at some point in the near future the License Committee will consider a version of the ordinance we link below. If the Committee adopts the ordinance, it then must go to the full City Council for a vote. If it passes that body, it will then become law.  

CMC has been working diligently to advocate on your behalf with City officials and will continue to seek an ordinance, if possible, that allows for the continued flourishing of Chicago music and our world-class music economy in a safe and accountable way, and oppose an ordinance that does not.

We are posting the latest version of the proposed ordinance (PDF) (that again has not been adopted by the License Committee), along with a FAQ document that DBA has prepared, for your review.  We expect you to have a number of questions.  Please let us know what you think.

We also want to learn more about the promoter business in Chicago that we believe has not yet been properly analyzed.  If you are a promoter or work with promoters (as a venue owner or Special Events licensee), please take the anonymous survey.

Check back to this site for additional information on the ordinance’s hearing schedule and subsequent amendments to it, and for CMC’s position statement on the ordinance that the License Committee does eventually consider. 

Again, thank you for your interest in Chicago music.

Sincerely,
Chicago Music Commission