A music scene can be defined as a cultural space delimited on a territory by a set of activities, places and institutions in relation to a common musical culture. Popular music is not only bounden to a space of social practices and representations, but also to political and economic spaces in which a multitude of public policies intervene. More broadly, a cultural scene reveals the diversity of regulations implemented that participate in its shaping – while the latter are not always defined as instruments of cultural governance. The cultural industries, which play a central role in local and translocal cultural dynamics are, however, largely absent from the various studies on cultural policies. Drawing on three field studies (in Paris, Sydney, Québec), we show that public interventions towards popular music are based solely on two registries of action – the social and economics – which ultimately questions the aims of cultural interventionism.