Saturday 11th March, 2006

(Room 2, Lower Ground Floor, Royal Garden)
Chairmen: Padma Coram (The Talent Brokers, United Arab Emirates) and Peeter Rebane (BDG Music, Estonia)

This lively panel session began with an analysis of the differences - and considerable similarities - between the emerging live music markets in the Middle East (Coram) and the Baltics (Rebane). Contributions from Risto Juvonen and, in particular, John Giddings reminded delegates that - idiosyncrasies of the markets aside - the business of working in these countries will frequently come down to one thing: cold hard cash.

CHAIRMANS' COMMENTS:

PADMA CORAM: People weren't afraid to speak - they definitely voiced their opinions and concerns, although I'm not sure how much was achieved.

PEETER REBANE: The key was to discuss the whole issue of emerging markets, about ensuring decent fair competition, not killing each other and providing services to artists. I was glad to hear from John Giddings and Carl Leighton Pope that apart from money, they do care about not having surprises - having the right offer and not necessarily the highest.

CORAM: My territory (Dubai) is interesting and fun - it can be like a paid holiday for the artist.
With there being no withholding tax, I would have thought it would be fantastically interesting! I presume our downside is geographical location and lack of venues.

REBANE: I would like to have talked more about the issue of normal fair business practices. Coming from a movie business background, I can honestly say that I try to do honest business, but I feel there is an assumption that you are cheating. Everyone does contracts in a way that forces you to do something creative you don't want to do. The key problem with the whole industry is that risks are not equally borne and deals are not 100% transparent.

(Room 3, Lower Ground Floor, Royal Garden)
Chairman: Chrissy Uerlings (Peter Rieger Konzertagentur, Germany)

Safety Focus Group chairman Chrissy Uerlings helmed a session that included a PSA presentation and discussion of subjects including terrorism, noise regulations and crowd barrier tests.

CHAIRMAN'S COMMENT:

It was a success. It got out of control at the start, then in control at the right time!

Whenever an industry starts to gather information and starts analysing it, people have opinions.
That was the major opinion [point], and everybody said it was a great idea to do it, to talk about the band in question, about the concert and about the different mentalities of the countries.

Once again, there was a big demand for technical representation. There are a lot of issues that need to be discussed and need action... We are getting closer with the change that has happened in some countries, and I think that with the data collecting, it will be a very quick process.

One thing that we could barely get round to was the liability and responsibility of the different persons involved technically - the production manager, the local rep, the ops guy from the venue.
It's such a huge issue to start clearly defining who, in the end, is liable. In the end, working regulations need to be adhered to.

(Room 4, Lower Ground Floor, Royal Garden)
Chairmen: Stuart Worthington (MMF Training, England) and Dougie Souness (No Half Measures, Scotland)

MMF Training's Stuart Worthington and No Half Measures' Dougie Souness headed up this meeting of the artist managers of the MMF and the ever-expanding IMMF. A productive session considered a range of issues currently confronting artists.

CHAIRMAN'S COMMENT:

STUART: It was a very useful session with lots of good questions and agreed points. The dominant theme was the need for transparency and for everybody to work together closely. I'm glad to say that pretty much everything on the agenda was covered, and the managers on the panel - which also included Peter Jenner - had some great contributions to make.

(Room 1, Lower Ground Floor, Royal Garden)
Chairman: Peter Tudor (Wembley London Ltd, UK)

Last year's ticketing panel was a high-point of ILMC 17, and it was pretty much inevitable that there would be a successor. The 2006 panel addressed the ticketing issues facing the industry, including reselling, counterfeiting and new distribution methods.

CHAIRMAN'S COMMENT:

It was great - sometimes you can sit up there hoping that people will speak, but this time I had a plethora of arms to choose from!

There was a lot to discuss - the closure of getmetickets, the emergence of ASTA (Association of Secondary Ticket Agents). I had hoped that we would also get round to start talking about auction sites, but that will have to wait.

We weren't exactly whistling in the dark 12 months ago, but there have been real advances in the last 12 months. There is another meeting coming up with the DCMS (Department of Culture Media & Sport) at the end of April, an Association of Secondary Tickets ethics guide...we will see if that works.

What is interesting is that getmetickets has been closed down by the government, and whether that was something that would have happened anyway or because we are lobbying so hard for change. The government is quite keen to prove that existing legislation works - that's their strategy and we will see if it works.

(Room 3, Lower Ground Floor, Royal Garden)
Chairman: Ben Challis (Glastonbury Festivals, UK)

This session caught music television at an intriguing time in its development, with the advent of digital providing a previously unimaginable choice of alternative channels. The output of networks like MTV and the coverage of events including Live8 came in for close analysis, as did the phenomenon of singing star 'creation' via long-running talent show series.

CHAIRMAN'S COMMENT:

The main point became the rise of the reverse scenario - in other words, rather than TV filming bands, series like PopIdol and The X-Factor are putting acts on TV then taking them out and touring them to the population. There was quite a heated debate about whether that was right or not. One of the delegates thought it was counterproductive for the industry and very shortsighted; taking money out of the hands of bands who struggle and are musicians. Heather McGill of 19 Management, Paul Fitzgerald, agent for The X-Factor, and Pete Wilson, who tours The X-Factor, were there so a good debate ensued. It was mostly business people in the room, so I would say the debate came down on the side of bums on seats! We considered at the end about where TV is going. We agreed that it is going to fragment with new digital channels and different panels. But everyone concurred that live event coverage is a growth area.

(Room 4, Lower Ground Floor, Royal Garden)
Chairmen: Laszlo Hegedus (Multimedia International Kft, Hungary) and Tor Nielsen (EMA Telstar, Sweden)

A full house attended this session to hear the tour co-ordinators give their on the road views of the current concert business and their opinions of the service they receive from other areas of the industry.

CHAIRMAN'S COMMENT:

TOR: I thought it was a very good session, although it is not for me to say really! There were three main points to the discussion: how it is today, how we can improve the business, and how production managers can be structured, work more closely with agents, and give us the right information. We can be more structured in preparing them with regard to the [kind of issues] that lay the ground for the concert and can totally blow the day. We also talked about the lack of new technicians, and the need to pay better wages and make the live music industry more interesting and lucrative.

We also talked about settlements on major shows - it's an eternal fight. The solution to that is that you should advance settlements and budgets. No good tour accountant should leave a budget five months then start quarelling on the day or night of the show! They should go through the line item costs very early on.

The bottom line is that this is a healthy business as there is more work now than ever before - promoters and the touring peple are overloaded with work. We can moan and groan that it can be better, but it does seem that everything is quite healthy at the moment.

(Room 1, Lower Ground Floor, Royal Garden)
Chairman: Willem Venema (The Alternative, Netherlands)

An all-star panel took the stage to discuss the unvarnished realities of working as an agent in 2006. The emphasis was on a dissection of the basics for those who weren't even approaching their first decade in the business.

CHAIRMAN'S COMMENT:

I didn't set a real topic. I thought it was better to educate people in the room who were newcomers - people who were just interested to know who the people on stage were. I approached the whole thing from an education point of view, sharing the experiences of other people who were in the business.
When I started out long ago, I was also curious to find out about the people who I [supposedly] couldn't talk with because I was a newcomer. What old people forget is that there's a whole new generation, which doesn't have this history at all. Like I said in my speech, there are no schools where you can learn this, or books. It has to be an oral addition, plus some articles in magazines.

The live industry is very much dependent on agents. I wanted to look at the issue of how you start. Everything has changed and it is now much more difficult to fight your way in. I wanted to [consider] that if you are 18 and want to become an agent, how do you get into that scene?

If I did it again, I would bring more women on-stage. This event needs more women onstage - it is not only a man's business.

(Room 3, Lower Ground Floor, Royal Garden)
Chairman: Linda Bull (NEC Group, UK)

This session took the form of a review of the present state of venues in different countries, ranging from clubs to stadia.

CHAIRMAN'S COMMENT:

I definitely think that people got something out of it. There was a good discussion on the need to comply with new health and safety legislation, and about the search for new 'product' inevitably leading to more collaborative ventures. The panel gelled very well - most people knew each other - and it was good to have someone from a smaller venue (Patrick Bart). It might be interesting [at any future session] to talk more about the opportunities for promoters and venues working together more closely.

(Room 4, Lower Ground Floor, Royal Garden)
Chairman: Martin Talbot (Music Week, UK)

Should the UK have its own live music industry data? This was the starting point for a debate that found Live Nation UK's managing director, at least, commit to the cause of supplying information that would enable more accurate recording - and prediction - of industry trends.

CHAIRMAN'S COMMENT:

The main thrust was to talk about why the UK hasn't got live data, whether it should, and how this might be brought together. At Music Week we recently published some live data for the first time - it was interesting, but very much incomplete. Our aim is to create something that is a more complete picture. And Stuart Galbraith has said quite clearly, Yes, we will supply you with data. There are about eight to ten other promoters who have also said yes, and there are a couple of others who are kind of reticent. This session was about raising issues, to air the discussion, and to get people to talk about benefits, pros and cons, and everything else.

The benefits are transparency within the industry, the ability to promote and raise the profile of specific venues and promoters, and also to raise the profile of specific acts and when they have been very successful. It would also allow you to highlight when smaller acts have emerged at a smaller level. So, for instance, a year ago you would have been able to see the Arctic Monkeys beginning to gather a head of steam; a year before that you would have seen the same with Magic Numbers.

Stuart's line was straightforward: we will provide data, the UK needs it and it's time that everyone got with the message.

(Room 2, Lower Ground Floor, Royal Garden)
Chairman: Heather McGill (19 Management, UK)

A team of ILMC 'veterans' mixed with younger voices to analyse changing industry patterns.

CHAIRMAN'S COMMENT:

I was interested to see that people wanted to discuss European brands and the cultural diversity in promoting those in the UK. I thought that was one of those topics I would struggle to even get off the ground, but actually there was quite a lot of discussion about that.

I was very lucky to have had such a chatty panel, [although] there were lots of things we didn't get around to. I would have liked to discuss economies of scale, and how we can make circumstances more encouraging for investors and sponsors. I would also have loved to discuss crimes against the environment. Are we thinking about the environmental impact on areas where we go and do our shows? Can we make our industry a greener industry? Maybe that's something for a panel next year.

(Room 3, Lower Ground Floor, Royal Garden)
Chairmen: Herman Schueremans (Rock Werchter / Live Nation, Belgium) and Nagi Baz (Buzz Productions, Lebanon)

A panel headed up by the (Arthur Award-winning) Werchter Festival's Herman Scheuremans discussed the full spectrum of issues affecting the burgeoning festival sector.

CHAIRMAN'S COMMENT:

HERMAN: I think it was a successful session as people stayed throughout and there was interaction with the complete room.

The main theme was the communal belief that, with festivals, we are on the creative side of the music business. [We agreed] that the festival market will grow not only in Europe but all over the world, provided you give it time. It's a case of evolution on the basis of realism, you might say.

The importance of festivals cannot be overestimated. In contrast to indoor shows of international acts - where a show is a part of a European or world tour, and where you work as a promoter in a marketing system - a festival promoter can really be creative, add extra value to the business, crack acts big and have an influence on society as festivals are the places of social gathering.

There could be a follow-up session in future. This might hinge on the suggestion that long-haul festivals organise themselves into a body in the same way as we did in Europe with YOUROPE, the European festival association. It would be nice to see whether this works.

(Room 4, Lower Ground Floor, Royal Garden)
Chairman: Tina Waters (The Tour Company, Scotland)

CHAIRMAN'S COMMENT:

I was a bit apprehensive as I'd never chaired a panel before, but I thought that it went really well. The panel was a really good cross-section of people, and they all had entertaining and informative stories to share. We had stiff competition from Meet the New Boss, but I think that anyone who was there came away with a better understanding of some of the new legislation regarding immigration - due to come into effect in the UK in the near-future, and what they need to look out for. Although we did touch on other countries, it was predominantly US/UK-driven. The whole UK thing is still very much a work in progress, and a topic to be explored further in the future.