The ILMC is twenty. Say it again - it is, honestly! That beautiful smiling baby became a precocious child, then the over achieving tweeny and then, as the hormones kicked in, a sometimes funny, sometimes belligerent teenager. And now we are all grown up. Allegedly that is.

So a packed out busy, busy ILMC 20 began with the - now traditional - first panel hosted by the legend that is Carl Leighton-Pope - our very own man of two decades (well OK, a few more than two) whose Talking Shop always has the weekend's biggest and noisiest crowd. And it was ticketing that got the ILMC excited and annoyed this year. With managers, promoters, booking agents, ticket agents and secondary ticketers all at the ILMC, it was never going to be quiet (was it?). Both Carl's session and Saturday's Ticketing, an honest admission kicked off the main talking point of the weekend - just how should the industry be selling its tickets, and who should be selling them and just who is a 'tout' anyway (?) with one pithy comment describing the packed ticketing session as 'open warfare'. I am not sure we have any sort of answer or consensus on that thorny issue but the ILMC has come a long way in twenty years and whilst the industry is still a far flung sometimes disjointed group, it's fair to say that in certain areas the ILMC has made a real impact when the industry has come together - in particular with health and safety, with the original work of the ILMC Safety Focus Group and Tax with Harald Gram's and Dick Molenaar's stupendous efforts under the ILMC Tax Group umbrella to create a level playing field with tax on tours, at least in Europe.

Chrissy Uerling's Engine Room (and the ILMC Production Round Table) moved health and safety up a gear from 2007 under the banner of 'A Question of Responsibility'. It's great to see new structures coming into play with new initiatives and now YOUROPE has linked up with Buckinghamshire New University to push on the Round Table initiative, there is a real effort to engage in this area and move forward the debate and improve education and training. The environment is another area where the ILMC is starting to make a difference and Peter Tudor's Green Room (Footprints and Footfalls) produced a very strong panel featuring Andy Haworth (Live Nation), Catherine Botrill (Julies Bicycle/Oxford University), Tim Banfield (ACC Liverpool), Milton OBrien (WIN Entertainment Centre Australia) and Christof Huber from the St Galen Festival and YOUROPE - as well as contributions from the floor from Ben Challis on www.agreenerfestival.com's recent research into audience attitudes on green issues and from John Probyn (Live Nation) on greening festivals – with audience education and supply chain management being seen as keys to moving forward - and we are sure someone asked whether all the hot air produced by agents was contributing to global warming (whooops!).

Saturday afternoon produced another trio of strong panels with Richard Taylor looking at sponsorship (New labels for Old) and the now perennial Venue's Venue running alongside the very well-attended Festivals' Forum hosted solo in a sterling effort by Bojan Boskovic from the Exit Festival in Serbia who took the helm alone after Melvin Benn couldn’t make the panel. Bojan had a fun packed ninety minutes looking at sponsorship, problems with noise and capacity, the weather, the cost of headline bands and then the future of long-range touring.

Another strong panel included Henrik Bondo (Roskilde Festival, Denmark), Dan Panaitescu (Sziget Festival, Hungary) and Nick Hobbs (Charmenko) which was complemented by strong contributions from the floor from John Giddins (Isle of Wight, UK) on new sponsorship deals and Carel Hoffmann (Oppikoppi, South Africa) on the positive start to long-range touring solutions.  Interesting points coming out of this session included the rise of festival tourism around the world (a now capped 40% of Exit's guests are from Western Europe) and the differing reliance on ticket sales (Roskilde's income is 93% from ticket sales, Sziget just 40%). Those English delegates who left the room at the end of the panel to catch the second half of the Scotland v England rugby international witnessed some delirious scenes as Scotland crushed the English - but we all cheered up when news of Manchester United's loss to Portsmouth came  and things were almost made good again by Chelsea being beaten by .... Barnsley.

Sunday dawned and we all yawned. It's hard work this conference lark (isn't it?) and we're not as young as we used to be. But the Breakfast Meeting is as popular as ever and this year Ed Bicknell was joined by Marcel Avram, Ron Delsener and Harvey Goldsmith, three of the best known promoters in our industry and Ed looked back over the highs and lows of the last twenty years.

In the Booking Ring, Nick Hobbs looked at force majeure again this year - but this time from the promoter's perspective whilst in Immigration - getting past the roadblocks, Tina Waters focused on immigration problems with the US - in a sparsely attended but vital panel which highlighted what might be the live industry's next big problem - new barriers to touring.

So it was left to Allan McGowan's Sunday Supplement with a panel of ex-chairmen that included Ed Bicknell (as Feargal Sharkey), Gary Smith (Pollstar), music lawyer Ben Challis, Juri Makarov (Mararov Muusik), Tim Dowdall (Live Nation) and Norderslaag/Eurosonic organiser Peter Schmidt to try and see where the ILMC had been and where the industry is going. The session looked successful but the curious mix that was, and is, the ILMC and noted that the business sessions (which were often vital to promote change and good practice in the live music industry - tax, production, health & safety and now the environment and immigration) were often poorly attended but produced real change whereas the 'fun' sessions were always packed. But one thing all the panellists agreed on was that they always learnt something at every ILMC and that alongside this the conference was important to give the industry a voice - a platform - illustrated that morning when one of the UK's national newspapers (The Observer) picked up on the ticketing debate.

The position of women in the industry was debated and the lack of female chairs and panellists noted (at a session when the entire panel was male and white) though on a note of encouragement Peter Schmidt pointed out the number of women now coming into the industry was equal to men and in fact they now dominated in areas such as dance music - and the fact two Arthur winners were female was noted (well done Lucy and Emma!). Carl Leighton-Pope made an interesting point from the floor at the end of the panel saying that his own session had been less 'fun' in 2008 because the last twelve months had simply been so busy - we are an industry going through profound change.

Then it was just time for Martin's Autopsy ((steady as we go seemed to be the general feeling,  we love the hotel, lovely food but please look after the vegetarians and please can we stay where we are in London), out for a quick glass of champagne and then a beer or two in the bar. For those still standing it was the international meal out - lucky noshers - and blimey, that is it - the ILMC 20 is done and dusted. All grown up but with lots to do. Peace and love to all.
  
And the Winners are:
 
The Arthurs are without a doubt the most important awards in the music industry always produce worthy winners and this years hats off to: