I read with some interest the comments of Mr. Monahan of Bluesfest yesterday on the whole festival.
It might be the cart before the horse. A promoter like Mr. Monahan is not going to put an emerging artist on his main stage. It takes marketing dollars and investment to get an act to the point where someone is going to be intrigued enough at the festival to shift from one stage to another, or in fact just buy a ticket.
Marketing in the last 10 to 15 years has become a more expensive proposition. You have to hit a wider audience. You really have to target things whereas perhaps in the past you might have been hitting five or six publications and a handful of radio stations. You really have to lay out that plan so, again, you're hitting as many touch points as possible. This can be very expensive.
That's why in the new Ontario Music Fund, we're obtaining matching funds for every dollar that we spend on marketing an Ontario-produced recording.
Again, it allows us to extend and lengthen our reach so that we're able to go three or four singles deep on an album. We're able to take our time in setting up a record properly so that there's already audience engagement by the time your product hits either the digital services or the physical stores. So, again, within that tax credit model, if we are able to prolong our investment and mitigate some of our risks, we can bring these records to market much more effectively.