About the Incubator

The Austin Music Incubator is an innovative and progressive model for providing education and professional development opportunities and resources to Austin's musicians. The goal of the program is to leverage Austin's considerable talent pool to continue efforts in developing a class of artists in our city who can reach the next level in creating sustainable careers doing what they love - making music. We want to provide an opportunity for Austin's music industry to invest in itself by creating a program and an organization that can grow the vitality and presence of music in our City and project it out onto the world.

Artists selected as Awardees participate in this collaborative, 18-month long, do-it-yourself program in which they define their own creative and professional goals within a budget of up to $15,000 worth of services, and then work with the staff and advisors of the AMF over the course of the Incubator term to make a new recording and work towards their career goals. In addition, Finalists will each be awarded $1000 to help pay for the creation of new musical works.

Selected Awardees, chosen by our Board of Advisors, are offered a combination of training, mentoring and financial assistance in creating and marketing their work. Awardees are guided by AMF Staff and Advisors through a four phase process during the term of the Incubator. The four phases of the Incubator program are:           

                    Phase 1: Business and Goals Assessment
                    Phase 2: Pre-production and Production
                    Phase 3: Creation of a business plan and a marketing plan
                    Phase 4: Training & Mentorship to Develop Marketing, Promotion, and Touring 
                   

Artists will receive 1,000 copies of their new CD that they can sell as they wish.

Helping our artists achieve their goals will mean greater success for all of Austin's music industry and a strengthening of a culture and heritage that has come to define Austin as "The Live Music Capital of the World". Through the Austin Music Incubator we envision the emergence of a stronger class of capable and business savvy artists producing a distinct and powerful new sound that will demonstrate world wide to music fans and record labels alike the immense talent that thrives in our City

AUSTIN MUSIC INCUBATOR 2005-2006

Members of the AMF Advisory Board, comprised of a high-caliber group of industry professionals from Austin and around the country, reviewed applications and the Austin-based Advisors chose 3 Finalists from each category. The Finalists were then required to meet with the Advisory Board for an interview as well as play live at the Finalist showcase.   One Incubator Awardee & 2 Finalists from each category were selected based upon their originality, professionalism, creativity, musicianship, songwriting/lyrics, stage presence, and career commitment. 

All of the Finalists performed at a showcase on March 5th, 2005 at Antone's & Lucky Lounge in Austin, Texas where one finalist from each genre was chosen as the Austin Music Incubator Awardees for 2005-2006.  Final selection of the Awardees was announced during the 2005 SXSW Music Conference.

This term, AMF is very excited about an expansion of the program in which we have added financial awards for the 2 artists in each category who qualify as Finalists but are not selected as Awardees. Each of those artists received up to $1,000 to help facilitate the creation of new musical works.

The categories are organized as follows: 
Category I:  Blues/Jazz, Hip-Hop/Urban, Latin/Tejano, R&B, and Reggae
Category II:  Alt-Country, Americana, Bluegrass, Country, Folk, and Singer-Songwriter
Category III:  Alternative, Heavy/Metal, Indie, Pop, Punk, and Rock

For complete application details, please visit our application info page or our Incubator FAQ.