International Live Music Conference - March 9 to 11, 2001

Although the last touches are still being added to the weekend's discussion agenda from the suggestions on your registration forms, much of it is already in an advanced stage of planning. The final details will be posted on this website, emailed to everyone on our next 'eNews', and, of course, listed in depth in our conference handbook, The Globetrotters Guide.

 

Once again this year, we'll also be hosting private meetings for major industry associations (including YOUROPE, RPA, EJFO and CPA) during Friday morning - and our unique gathering of music organisation representatives in the afternoon at the 'Council of Associations'.As usual, attendance is restricted to invited association members only.

Friday, 9 March / 15:00 - 15:15

Main Room, Lower Ground Floor
Royal Garden Hotel

An emotional reunion with your conference organiser, who will attempt to hold your attention long enough to explain some of the treats that the weekend holds in store - while offering tear stained whimperings of gratitude to the general assembly for once again bothering to show up and save him from financial and professional disaster.

Friday, 9 March / 15:15 - 17:30

Main Room, Lower Ground Floor
Royal Garden Hotel
Chairman: Carl Leighton-Pope (LPO, UK)

Kicking off the Main Room debates in it's usual slot, The Talking Shop will offer a preview of the weekend's debates and a platform for discussion of topics raised on your registration forms - with the added benefit of our chairman's somewhat unique view of life, the universe and European history in the mid 20th Century.

Although the final agenda is still being compiled at the time of going to print, issues like the impact of MP3, the growing age-gap between the business' establishment and the new generation of wheelers and dealers, and the apparent fragmentation of the international industry into a series of local businesses, have all been put forward.

Certain not to escape attention, however, is the continuing and seemingly inexorable march of corporate living into our erstwhile free-roving existences - which is long overdue for the 'Leighton-Pope treatment'. Someone, somewhere, may also be in for a surprise...

Saturday, 10 March / 10:30 - 13:00

Lower Ground Floor & Mezzanine
Royal Garden Hotel

Breakout Meetings, are set to focus on a growing menu of topics in forums that include both regular favourites and some brand new inventions. The provisional line-up of topics and 'adults-in-charge' for Saturday's meetings includes:

• The Emerging Market's Place 10:30 - 11:45
  The Albert Suite
  Adults In Charge:
  Tim Dowdall (Multimedia, Hungary)
  Nadia Solovieva (SAV Entertainment, Russia)

  Continuing the last few meeting's investigations into the special problems associated with developing the industry in new - and sometimes remote - territories, where the economics and infrastructure don't necessarily correspond to those of the 'core' markets in Western Europe and the USA.

• The Engine Room 10:30 - 11:45
  The Victoria Suite
  Adult In Charge:
  Brian Croft (Vari-Lite Europe, UK)

  A collection of production industry heavy-weights look into the high costs of touring - and who is responsible for them. The answer may be surprising, because it doesn't seem to be our long-suffering supply companies as some might have otherwise thought..

• The Jazz Session 10:30 - 11:45
  Carl's Crypt, The Mezzanine
  Adult In Charge:
  Dennis Armstead (Yellow Go-Rilla, UK)

  In it's new, consummately cool and highly appropriate setting of Carlsberg's jazz-themed 'Crypt', our trad chairman will again steer the industry's finger- poppin' daddy-ohs into a millennium of jazz music at 'The Speakeasy Part 3'.

  The subjectÊ for this year's Jazz Session is "Women in Jazz" - with guest speakers Julie Allison, Universal Jazz Press and Florence Halfon, Warner Jazz Publicity.

• Meet the Venues 10:30 - 11:45 The Westminster Room
  Adult In Charge:
  Peter Tudor (Wembley, UK)

  The UK's National Arenas Association attempts to answer the question 'arenas rock - but for how long?' using statistics that have been collected by their members from hundreds of events and hundreds of thousands of ticket sales.

  Don't think that this is just another 'UK issue' - the information compiled here has to be seen as relevant to questions regarding the current health or status of live entertainment around the world, coming - as it does - from a detailed examination of a sample from one of our core markets.

• The Tax Office 11:45 - 13:00
  The Main Room
  Adult In Charge:
  Dick Molenaar (All Arts, Netherlands)

  Last year this was billed as a 'semi-private meeting for the industry's top professionals' who it would be best to leave in peace. The result was that half of the total conference attendance tried to squeeze into a small, boardroom-style room to find out what was going on. Luckily we have already established the principle of giving each of our major annual Breakouts their turn in the spotlight of the Main Room, and it was therefore something of a no-brainer that this meeting should be the choice for ILMC the 13th.

  In spite of the diligent efforts of our 'Artist Tax Working Party' throughout the last year, it seems as though the general situation has continued to roll towards a position where live touring has become at best a chore and at worst financially unviable. This session will report on the progress that has been made, update us all on the current local issues, and introduce us to some of the human faces behind the heavy-weight titles of those in authority among the international governments. A dialogue should prove not only interesting, but possibly essential for the future growth of our business.

Saturday, 10 March / 12:30 - 15:00

The Park Terrace, Ground Floor
Cyber Cafe, Mezzanine
Royal Garden Hotel

Complimentary 5-star buffet lunch and pay bar during a break from the conference room which has been specially extended this year to allow maximum schmoozing time (the expression 'if you can't beat 'em, join 'em' comes to mind... ). It will also allow some flexibility for Breakouts that overrun - so there's no need to panic - just come along when you're ready to the Park Terrace - or the seated comfort of the Cyber Cafe.

Saturday, 10 March / 15:00 - 17:30

Main Room
Royal Garden Hotel
Chairmen: Roberto de Luca (Milano Concerti, Italy) and Roger Barrett (Star Hire, UK)

Taking centre stage at our main forum - and setting an underlying theme for the entire weekend - is one of the most important issues ever to have been raised at an ILMC meeting: an investigation of the urgent problems surrounding crowd safety.

In a grim prediction of what was to come at events like Roskilde, the Big Day Out and Brazil's Planet Atlantido, it was only at last year's ILMC that the Festival Forum and Engine Room merged in an impromptu session to discuss this very subject - pooling the expertise of people from both production and festival backgrounds.

If the issue then was concern over potential government control, now the emphasis must have shifted, and this discussion has to be considered of the utmost importance to anyone involved in the business live entertainment - irrespective of whether that involvement is with major open-air shows or the smallest of clubs. Accidents can always happen when large numbers of people gather - and our industry is one of the most expert in the world at preventing them - but there is always room to improve any system through the pooling of ideas, and this unique forum offers a rare chance to do just that.

Sunday, 11 March / 10:30 - 13:30

Lower Ground Floor & Mezzanine
Royal Garden Hotel

Breakout Meetings, are set to focus on a growing menu of topics in forums that include both regular favourites and some brand new inventions. The provisional line-up of topics and 'adults-in-charge' for Sunday's meetings includes:

• The Festival Forum 10:30 - 11:45
  The Albert Suite
  Adult In Charge:
  Herman Schueremans (Rock Werchter, Belgium)

  With the multi-million dollar open-air season rapidly approaching, and recent tragedies now behind us, this annual meeting place for the world's leading heads has to address the issue of whether it is 'business as usual' for our controversial large-scale events. As ever, the show will - no doubt - go on, but the old issues remain.

• The Manager's Office 10:30 - 11:45
  The Victoria Suite
  Adult In Charge:
  Stuart Worthington (MMF, UK)

  The third edition of this forum - established to forge a link between the concert industry and the world of artist management - will feature representatives of the Music Managers Forum and others discussing the complexities of managing an artist in the current corporate climate where the live act is regarded as audio/visual product. What constitutes a managers role, and what are his functions now in an industry so keen to wear as many different hats a possible?

• Everything you always wanted to know about... Insurance 10:30 - 11:45
  The Chelsea Room
  Adult In Charge:
  Martin Goebbels (Robertson Taylor, UK)

  We all know about cancellation and public liability insurance, but what seems to be less clear is the question of who pays when there's a claim? Our resident experts will not only lay out the ground-rules, but perhaps expose a rather large loophole that seems to exist in our sophisticated industry's capacity to deal with situations when they go wrong...

• The Grown Up's Room 10:30 - 11:45
  The Westminster Room
  Adult In Charge:
  Richard Taylor (Simkins Partnership, UK)

  Aided by other notable professionals, the ILMC's favourite 'legal eagle' sets out this year to tackle the thorny issue of the concert industry's apparent obsession with contracts, in the pithily titled 'Rebels without a Clause'.

  Just how necessary are the mountains of paperwork that we generate - are they enforceable, or even legal? Is the live business in danger of choking its last vestiges of creativity in piles of red tape just by trying to be too clever for it's own good? It may raise a smile of recognition, but it's an extremely serious and pressing issue for all of us.

• The Booking Ring 12:00 - 13:30
  The Main Room
  Adult In Charge:
  Emma Banks (Helter Skelter, UK)

  'Round 13' of this annual bare-knuckles bout between those old adversaries, the agents and the promoters, seems in danger of developing WWF -style rules with the potential entry into the ring of a third combatant - the manager. The seemingly endless list of practical points that we continue to try to reach agreement on each year in this forum will therefore be expanded by an examination of the business relationship between the agent and the manager - which is, after all, the foundation of most of the problems that those of us who are involved in the booking process encounter on a daily basis.

Sunday, 11 March / 13:30 - 15:00

The Park Terrace, Ground Floor
Cyber Cafe, Mezzanine
Royal Garden Hotel

Complimentary 5-star buffet lunch with that 'Sunday feeling', pay bar and (yawn) yet another monster schmoozing session.

Sunday, 11 March / 15.00 - 17.00

Main Room, Lower Ground Floor
Royal Garden Hotel
Chairmen: Malcolm McKenzie (Emap, UK) and Frank Van Hoorn (Van Hoorn Company, Netherlands)

• Dance Music: 'Scratching the Surface'

  This time we hope they won't be 'out there doing it, not in here talking about it'. It may have taken three previous attempts, but this year we'll finally be looking into the mysteries of the dance market - what processes are involved, and what comparisons can be made with the time-honoured processes of the rock industry. We also hope to discover the secret of creating a 'Super Club'Ê and then exporting the concept.

• Webcasting: 'The rights and wrongs'

  This new global medium - unknown just a few years ago - comes under the microscope in a session during which we hope to get an insight into the way that the technology works, its use as an additional marketing tool, and some of the thorny legal issues that it raises. With all levels of venues and festivals installing the technology, new production companies springing up everywhere, and record companies apparently 'still learning', does this cyber platform need special controls, or is it, quite literally, literally a 'free- for-all'?

Sunday, 11 March / 17.00 - 17.30

Main Room, Lower Ground Floor
Royal Garden Hotel

This is where we all get to find out 'whodunit' when the assembled heads of live music meet with their conference organisers for a forensic examination of the weekend - the good, the bad and the downright ugly. Believe it or not, the planning for ILMC 14 has already begun - and your feedback will be invaluable.