Five music venues along Austin’s downtown Red River Cultural District have earned the right to host live music later into the night following the success of a recent pilot program. To address the skyrocketing rents faced by the district’s live music venues, the city in May initiated a pilot program to allow five venues to extend their outdoor live music curfews by one hour between Thursday and Saturday nights. The extra hour aimed to increase sales, helping venue owners to pay rents and provide higher compensation to local artists. City leaders, venue owners and residential neighbors lauded the pilot as a success. On Thursday, Austin City Council voted unanimously to solidify the pilot program into ordinance. The Mohawk, Cheer Up Charlie’s, Stubb’s BBQ, The Sidewinder and Empire Control Room and Garage— can now host live music outdoors until midnight on Thursday nights and 1 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights. The city staff report on the program showed fairly consistent year-over-year increases in alcohol sale revenue. There were also year-over-year increases in ticket sales, the amount paid to staff, the amount of local acts and amount paid to local acts. While working to increase revenue for the venues, the program—now ordinance—also revamps the city’s sound monitoring process to ensure the extended live music hours do not impact the quality of life for nearby residential neighborhoods. City staff said stakeholder meetings would occur four times annually to ensure compliance and to discuss ways to enhance the program. Austin Mayor Steve Adler said the issue of live music and neighborhoods has been a point of contention for decades and the ordinance represented the first substantial progress made in the issue. Ryan Garrett, general manager of Stubb’s BBQ, said the new ordinance would continue to pay dividends for venues, artists and the local music scene. A city report noted that crime incidents increased during the time of the program. However, Austin Police Department Assistant Chief Justin Newsom said there was no correlation between crime and the pilot program. Rather, police presence increased in the area, thus increasing the number of incidents of police intervention.