CHESTERFIELD, Mo.—After an intermission of roughly 10 years, the state of Missouri is ready to be a player again in the entertainment industry, thanks to a tax credit bill that took effect Monday.

Senate Bill 96 brings back a new version of the tax credit that lured Up in the Air, starring George Clooney, and Ben Affleck’s Gone Girl before the credit ended in 2013.

“Motion media production projects” that began on or after Jan. 1, 2023 would be eligible for a 20% tax credit of qualifying expenses, with the potential for an additional 5% depending on how much is shot in Missouri and where, and if a Missouri resident is hired for the project and develops skills from it.

The bill also aims to make Missouri a must-stop for musical acts prepping for their next big tour by creating tax credits of up to 30% of an act’s rehearsal and tour expenses.

Gov. Mike Parson held a ceremonial bill signing event in Chesterfield Tuesday afternoon at the future home of Gateway Studios and Productions, a roughly 300,000 square foot campus in Chesterfield Valley that will open next spring. The campus will be home to a hotel and buildings where musical acts can orchestrate and rehearse for productions that translate to performing in an NFL stadium or an NBA or NHL arena.

The music industry has seen the balance of economic power shift from yesterday’s radio traffic and CD sales to today’s highly produced tour stops. That means your favorite artists are spending months in rehearsal before they hit the road.

“Artists make most of their revenue from doing live events from doing concerts, touring throughout the world and that’s really led to artists putting more energy, money, effort into these shows that have made them more technologically advanced, more grandiose and require facilities like this to be able to give them the time, space and energy to put these shows on,” said Gateway Studios CEO Trey Kerr.

“They spend a lot of money. That is the economic driver for touring acts now and those acts need a space to build their shows, tech their shows rehearse their shows and that generally takes a couple of months depending on the size of the tour….so that their fans, if you’re at the first show it’s the same experience as the fan at the last show.”

The bill looks to put Missouri on a level playing field in the music space with Pennsylvania, which also offers a similar tax credit. It also comes with a significant hook for the state: acts that benefit from the tax credit must hold at least two concerts in Missouri.

On the movie side, the state of Georgia is still the leader of the pack, thanks to a tax credit program that has no cap. Missouri’s credit taps out at $8 million annually, unless offsets are factored into future years.

“It brings in two industries that we currently don’t have. And this gives us the ability to help our constituents out and help the people of Missouri with some really, truly high-paying jobs, highly technical jobs that they can have and they can get that experience,” said State Sen. Doug Beck, D-Affton, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, who noted lost opportunities to produce shows like Ozark and Tulsa King because the state didn’t have the credits in place. “Quite frankly right now, we train a lot of these folks and they leave the state, to do these jobs.”

Tax credit programs of all kinds have traditionally had some level of political opposition, an issue Gov. Parson alluded to Tuesday.

“People asked me….Gov. Parson why are you going to sign this bill. And really I just broke it down into simple terms. I can’t act. I can’t play music and I can’t sign. So I’m going to support the people that can,” Parson said.