Gigbeth Day 1 - Conference

I made a lot of notes at the Conference yesterday but unfortunately my Gigbeth bag did a disappearing act! Luckily the iPod was in my pocket out of harms way, but it means a lot of what I wanted to write here will probably be forgotten. Still, from memory…

• An honest and passionate interview session with Ruby Turner. Amongst other things, she said artists shouldn’t be upset with illegal downloading, if it means those people learn to love their work.

• A panel of local kids (14yo girls) who highlighted the changing ways in which people consume music. More importantly for the business people in the room, they said they would be prepared to pay for concerts (”it’s about the experience”) and tshirts, but not the music itself. Quick point - a greater spread of age and including some boys would’ve given a more representative viewpoint.

• One interesting point raised by one of the record labels was that the music itself is worthless and to make money now you need to create and promote a brand, just like you would with washing powder. This has always been the case in pop music, but is it now the case with other genres? I’m not so sure.

• I chatted to a couple of guys from the Adam Mickiewicz Institue in Poland, whose job it is to promote Polish culture abroad. We had a fascinating discussion about live music in Poland and the issues they face there. They are looking to promote Polish bands here in the future and I hope to be a part of that.

• I bemoaned the quality (or lack of) of the mp3 format. Whilst it has opened up a whole range of new distribution channels, it also poses problems for DJs and anyone wishing to just sit in a room and listen to music. iTunes tracks are encoded at 128kbps which is fine for iPods and cheap headphones. But when you want (or need, in my case) better quality, where do you turn? There is still a place for physical recordings and noone should lose sight of that.

• I had to stick up for promoters in one session where it seemed we got the blame for falling attendances at live performances! Firstly I’m not sure attendances are falling. There are more gigs now than ever before and in my experience this has been demand-led. Promoters were also criticised for not paying bands. I would love to pay every band that plays for me, but it’s just not feasible. I tend to pay a headline band the going rate and then support slots are offered to local bands looking to make a name for themselves. The important point here is those local bands are quite willing to play for free.

That’s it for now, I’m sure there’s plenty more that I will mention in due course. I can’t finish without thanking Clare and the team for their hard work. The conference was well attended and that shows the work that was put in to make the conference attractive to so many different kinds of people.

I intend on live blogging tonight, although this depends on wi-fi coverage, so watch this space!