The ILMC may have been first conceived as a one off meeting, but 20 years on, the grandfather of live music events has come of age. Greg Parmley reports.

There was a time, before the internet, email and even fax, when the world seemed a much bigger place. The live music industry was struggling through puberty, and as with all hormonal teenagers, communication was limited.

Promoter entrepreneurs were fashioning their respective markets in their own style, and safely encamped in the US and UK, booking agents held the keys to the concert kingdom. By controlling both the acts themselves and the information between borders, they wielded considerable power, while the conference map – a now complicated join-the-dots puzzle – lay blank.

“Midem was there, but no one went, as it was nothing to do with live,” says the ILMC’s Martin Hopewell. “There was just the New Music Seminar [NMS] in America, which was                                                      a big deal at the time.”

With the amount of annual events these days it is perhaps just a matter of time before someone launches a conference for music conferences, but 20 years ago, the date sheet of annual gatherings was wide open to ideas. And one such idea occurred at NMS in 1987, as Hopewell stood on a New York street corner, talking to promoters Rune Lem and Herman Schueremans.

“After about five minutes, I realised that they were both talking to me but not to each other,” Hopewell says. “They didn’t know each other. We discussed how it would be good to have a meeting so everybody could actually meet.”

There were issues of the day too. American agents were beginning to book bands directly into Europe, ignoring the pre-existing status quo between North America and the rest of the world, and tour producers had begun packaging whole tours and bypassing the agent.

“Ian Flooks [at Wasted Talent] got the agents together to tell promoters that they couldn’t go along with it,” Hopewell says. “It only took one promoter to break ranks in each country, so we picked on Holland, Scandinavia and Switzerland where single companies controlled the market – we figured that you couldn’t do a European tour without those countries, so poor Andy [Bechir], Thomas [Johansson] and Leon [Ramakers] ended up having the screws put on them by all of us!”

A Child Is Born

Hopewell wanted to introduce foreign promoters and collectivise what was a ragtag group of individuals into something which would later be termed an ‘industry’. Later that year, enrolling the help of his assistant and while still concentrating on his roster of acts at Chrysalis, he posted out invitations to the inaugural conference.

“We didn’t have a name for the thing,” he says. “The invitations simply said, ‘we should have an international live music conference’, and because there was nothing to refer to, it turned into the ILMC. I nicked the logo from Míele kitchen appliances.”

Like much of the ILMC’s history, the first event – held at London’s Mayfair Hotel – was coloured by circumstance, happy accident and the ability to turn disaster into direction. “The original plan was to do Friday and Saturday but we found out that Friday was stupidly expensive and we could get the weekend much cheaper, so we did that,” Hopewell says.

The registration database consisted of a cardboard sheet with hand written names, nametags were an afterthought, a banner was kindly donated, and Hopewell scribbled down some notes for chairman the night before. (A procedure that would last several years.)

“We had no idea how to do it production-wise, and neither did our technical people,” he says. “I was working with Mick Kluczinski at the time, who decided that if we hung microphones all over the ceiling, then anyone that spoke anywhere should be able to be heard. When they were all turned on, it was like standing under high tension cables and your hair stood on end. We had to rethink it.”

Hopewell initially invited 30 people: “Everyone was up for it as soon as they heard who else was likely to come,” he says. “Then other people heard about it, and they all wanted to be there too. On the day 175 people showed up so it escalated out of all proportion.”

Come the morning of the first ILMC, a queue of promoters snaked around Berkeley Square, all waiting patiently to get in, and none knowing the other.

“Everyone was taken with the way that all the important people came in the first year,” says Rune Lem. “It became an important event from the word ‘go’ which got it going – everyone wanted to be a part of that.”

“The very first conference was a small sensation,” says promoter Karsten Jahnke. “You met a lot of people that you normally needed half a year to visit. In the beginning there were some very exciting discussions.”

Speak to any of the delegates that attended ILMC 1, and they’ll all recount the excitement that was felt at the first event. And having succeeded in bringing the European promoters together, Hopewell thought his job was done.

“I sat down to thank everyone for coming and Rune Lem asked what we were going to do at the next one,” he says. “It hadn’t even occurred to me.”

The Family Grows

The size of the ILMC has always been directly related to the lifeblood of the event: the conference sessions. And the meetings originally took place in one main room, with all topics covered by all delegates.

“It worked beautifully as long as everyone was in the room,” Hopewell says. “But in year three, I could hear voices coming from the bar on the other side of the partition. Forty or so people were in there having a drink – I was outraged!”

“Marek Lieberberg got up out of his chair, threw open the doors and shouted into the bar: ‘Everybody into the conference room, Herr Hopewell demands that you come in!’ and they all trouped in like naughty schoolboys.”

Triple A’s Pete Wilson recounts how the ambivalence of some delegates led to the conference increasing in size: “Martin used to moan at everyone that they were out of the rooms every year, so I suggested putting more people in. He was always reluctant to increase it at rapid jumps, so he’d let a few more join the fold each year.”

“For the next eight or nine years we kept the capacity down to around 250 because I didn’t believe you could have a meaningful conversation with any larger number of people,” Hopewell says. “But that was all under the assumption that they were all going to be in the conference room. The current high capacity, in a way, is a measure of the failure of the conference sessions to enthuse the majority of the people.”

But the serious debate and swapping of ideas and information was a vital function of a growing entity, which attracted delegates from far flung countries for even the first outing.

“There were two Japanese guys there who didn’t speak a word of English, who taped all of the sessions and took them home to be translated,” Hopewell says. “There was another guy who’d hitchhiked from East Berlin, over the wall across Europe to be there.”

Claudio Makes His Mark

Despite the serious debate of the conference sessions, the social aspect of the ILMC is one that has carried it through two decades. Successive years incorporated evening events, and while the Gala Dinner (begun at ILMC10) grew organically out of a meal in the hotel on Saturday night, the origins of the Sunday night dinner are somewhat different.

“There was nothing on the Sunday night and a lot of people would be hanging around until Monday or had meetings that next week,” Hopewell says. “Around ILMC4, some bright spark had rounded up 30 notable delegates for an Indian meal. The first we knew was when the rotating doors of the Portman flew around and some very drunk delegates poured in, led by The Goon [Mike McGinley] the tour accountant with a bread basket on his head and a rose behind his ear.

“It was the time of the Gulf War, and they’d decided that Claudio [Trotta of Barley Arts] looked a bit like Saddam Hussein, and they chaired him around the room chanting ‘Saddamski’.”

When some Kuwaiti citizens in the bar took offence, the hotel security called the police and a scuffle ensued. According to legend, as the police jumped on Claudio, [Live Nation’s] Jackie Lombard joined in the fray, accidentally pulling open the uniform of a female officer.

“Claudio was frog marched off into a police van and driven away, pursued down the street by 20 drunk ILMC delegates,” Hopewell says.

“Everyone was screaming and shouting, and Harvey [Goldsmith] was ready with a lawyer at 7am the next morning if I wasn’t out, but they let me out anyway,” Trotta says. “The event was a bit legendary and I spent a few hours in a room with another guy. It was remembered for ages – it increased my personal legend!”

A couple of years later, Claudio was surprised with a This Is Your Life presentation when the whole event was re-enacted, along with Lombard dressed as a policewoman. “It was because of that incident that we decided to do a Sunday night dinner,” Hopewell says.

Best Laid Plans

Part of the ILMC’s success, and a key reason why it’s thought of so fondly by supporters, is its distinctly different ethos to the wealth of other conferences that have followed. It’s probably as far removed from the corporate, slickly run approach of some other events as it’s possible to get.

“We build a certain element of the homespun into even the most sophisticated ILMC,” Hopewell says. “It won’t change its character – it’s always been fun and done for the enjoyment of doing it. The day that it becomes a dry event will be the day that I lose interest. I still don’t think it’s a proper conference, it’s more like a gathering point with an element of the annual ritual, like Christmas.”

The numerous anecdotes from over the years speak for themselves, such as sharks being swiftly removed from set pieces so as not to offend DEAG executives, exploding dry ice packs engulfing chairmen mid sentence, serving beef in the midst of the Mad Cow Disease crisis, being stormed by armed police after blowing up Arthur Awards at the height of terrorist bombings or organisers getting lost and leading an army of delegates for a lengthy midnight stroll around Soho.

And neither are the delegates innocent of such behaviour, whether it’s the impromptu drunken singalongs around the hotel bar’s piano (which led to the Delegates Jam), throwing the contents of hotel rooms out of windows, climbing the central palm tree in a hotel atrium at 4am, or just wandering about plain naked.

“It’s been a series of half-arsed stunts and well intentioned plans that have been catastrophes to some extent or another and turned to comedic effect,” Hopewell says.”

Coming of Age

A “series of half-arsed stunts” it may be, but the ILMC today is far removed from its DIY origins. ILMC19 was given yet another increase in capacity to allow a record 880 delegates in, and this year demand is even higher. The event now takes the majority of the year to plan and employs several full-time staff and up to 70 over the conference weekend itself.

And while some elements of the first conference remain (such as the semi circular seating at conference sessions to create a forum involving all delegates), others have gradually found a natural home on the agenda, such as Carl Leighton-Pope’s Talking Shop, which continually draws the biggest crowd of the weekend, and Ed Bicknell’s Sunday morning Breakfast Meeting.

And by retaining its invite-only policy, ILMC may not be the best known of all music industry conferences, but it’s widely regarded as the most important, and one attended by the upper tier of industry figureheads. 

“I’ve been in the business for 35 years and I’ve never been to Midem,” says Herman Schueremans. “In order to be efficient, I need to go to ILMC every year, like the Christians go to Rome, and the Muslims go to Mecca.”

“It’s part of your life all year, it’s not just something that happens for a few days,” says Australian promoter Michael Chugg. “It’s become part of the industry worldwide.”

“If you’re in the live music business, you have to go to the ILMC,” adds Bernard Batzen at Azimuth.

If there is a criticism of the ILMC, it’s that the words spoken during the conference sessions sometimes don’t materialise into action. “If we decide something we should stick to it,” says Jackie Lombard. “If they just talk about it, then they leave the room and it’s over, what’s the point?”

But while Lombard is not alone in her thinking, Hopewell points out: “It’s not an association in its own right, it’s a discussion and social platform. I came to see it as a process of osmosis so that ideas were discussed that feed back into the industry, and eventually become common practice through consensus. If enough people agree with what’s being set and adopt those ideas, it becomes the norm.”

What the ILMC has done, however, is provide a forum and meeting place for similar minds to gel. The ILMC Safety Focus Group was born after nine Pearl Jam fans died during a crowd crush at Roskilde Festival in 2000, and this year sees a new production-focused day take place on 6 March.

“A lot of associations came out of the ILMC,” Hopewell says, citing examples such as the Production Services Association, and the short-lived European Concert Promoters Association.

“It didn’t last very long, but out of that came the corporatisation of the business by SFX, which involved a lot of the same people for the same reasons. I’m not saying it was down to the ILMC, but the address book those guys had was quite thin, and if it wasn’t for the conference, would it have happened?

“The ILMC has been a background noise to everything that’s been going on for the last 20 years. It’s hard to estimate how much influence it’s really had, but the biggest thing we’ve done is to bring people together who would have otherwise not known each other.”

New Crowd

With the next generation entering the live industry, the ILMC has seen a raft of new faces over the last five to six years. Hopewell admits he has “no idea” where the conference will be in just five years, let alone 20, but some of the older delegation is keen to ensure that the future heads of industry don’t misunderstand its purpose.

“People shouldn’t think that the second or third year that they come, they know or understand everything,” Trotta says. “The ILMC is about taking part, listening, learning and teaching. If you just go there to buy and sell it’s wrong.”

But the face of the conference, like the industry it has championed for two decades, is gradually changing. “Clearly we’re looking at a different world from the one where it all started off,” Hopewell says. “It was an old-boys club; there were so many people that were in, and everybody else was out.”

And if ever there was proof that the conference is treading in time to the industry’s changing beat, it’s perhaps this example from its founder:

“I got into a lift the other year with someone who said, ‘I know you, don’t I?’ I replied with a proud smile and somewhat fake humility, ‘Well, it’s quite possible’. They said, ‘You’re Carl Leighton-Pope aren’t you?’ I think that was the moment I saw my knighthood flying out of the window.”

GREG PARMLEY