Event Transcripts

The Road To Tour Management: 1-Day Course, 2016

2016

Andy Inglis focuses on one of the most interesting, pertinent and specialised areas: Tour Management.

Creators' Rights In The Digital Landscape

2015

This think tank considers the pressing issue of creators’ rights and remuneration in the digital landscape.

Private Copy Exemption: Rightsholders And Remuneration

2015

This transcript centers the discussion on a bold and imaginative solution regarding rightsholder compensation.

The Road To Tour Management 2015

2015

Andy Inglis returns to deconstruct the live industry, this time focusing on one of the most interesting, pertinent and specialised areas: Tour Management.

Moneyballing Music: Big Data, Consumers And A&R

2015

This think tank considered this issues of how the recorded music industry is currently collecting and using data to support a historically subjective process of signing new artists.

Is Technology The New Beatles?

2014

This think tank debate presented a vision of technology’s engagement with music and shed light on what new technology fused with music is bringing to the industry.

The Artist Economics Of Streaming

2014

MusicTank aims to shed some light upon the economics of the record business’ next big format shift.

Follow The Money: Can The Business Of Ad-Funded Piracy Be Throttled?

2013

Recent debates on infringement are increasingly focusing on the role of advertising in bankrolling unlicensed sites. Could this new focus create common ground between Big Tech and the content industries…?

Get Plugged In: Live Music, Promotion and Venue Management Course 2013

2013

Targeting tour managers, promoters, booking agents, marketers, DIY artists and small-to-medium sized venue owners and operators, this innovative 5-part course will provide all with a thorough grounding in the business of live music.

Ticket To Ride: Getting Primary Tickets Back Into The Hands Of Fans

2012

In a summit comprising two panels and a case study, MusicTank will bring together executives from across the ticketing business, consumer representatives and government to look at ways to re-balance the primary and secondary ticket markets – in favour of fans and not profiteers.

The Big Question: Can Streaming Go Mainstream?

2012

Once heralded as an industry saviour, a stigma is beginning to form around streaming services and the radio silence from labels on the detail of licensing deals.

Get Plugged In: Live Music, Promotion and Venue Management Course 2011

2011

Targeting tour managers, promoters, booking agents, marketers, DIY artists and small-to-medium sized venue owners and operators, this innovative 6-part course will provide all with a thorough grounding in the business of live music.

The Brave New World of Location-Based, App-Driven & Immersive Marketing

2010

This think tank will create a positive environment in which current technological innovations and trends, from social media, mobile apps, augmented reality, location-based games and hardware developments will be discussed and their positive application to the music industry debated.

Saving The Golden Goose: Improving The Live Experience

2010

In the first of our Year Zero series of think tanks, MusicTank asks how we can improve the general public’s experience of live music, and in so doing protect an increasingly vital income stream?

Never Mind The Box Set: The Album Post-iTunes

2010

What can the recordings industry do to revive the album’s flagging condition? From the sensible to the extreme we’ll hear from those who believe that technology, design, and marketing can provide a shot in the arm to the format that gave us ‘Dark Side Of The Moon’, ‘Nevermind’, ‘OK Computer’ and ‘Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em’, and hear from those who have turned their back on the album altogether.

'No. 1' With A Bullet: Is Pre-Release Killing Our Business?

2010

MusicTank ask how labels should market and promote their releases in a post-digital age and whether it is possible or even desirable for the media and music businesses to wean each other off their addiction to release dates.

Jazz And The Beeb: A Love Supreme Or Kind Of Blue?

2010

Central to this think tank is the BBC’s role in supporting and developing jazz and other niche genre. Should the BBC adopt both a policy and a strategy for the support of its national jazz scene? With current interest in jazz experiencing a current high, are its pleas for more support from the ‘the nations favourite’ justified?

Live Music: Licensed To Thrill?

2009

Prepare for a clash of opinions, with individual livelihoods and the future of the industry at stake.

Millennials & The Social Media Explosion

2009

This MusicTank session will lift the lid on the social media phenomenon and reveal how rights holders can better engage with this social space and make sense of its increasingly complex future.

Media Composers: New Rules Of Engagement?

2009

This think tank debate will compare traditional and evolving commissioning models for composers and producers of music for advertising and television.

Can The Music Industry Afford To Go Green?

2009

Launching at MusicTank’s think tank debate on sustainability, environmental coalition Julie’s Bicycle will unveil a unique initiative providing grants to help music companies with carbon audits, training and tools for sustainable energy management.

Let’s Sell Recorded Music! Part 4: Squaring The Circle

2008

Drawing together conclusions from the series and scope possible areas for consultation, research and development. It will also consider the main issue to surface throughout this discussion strand: at the heart of the future of digital music sales, does the future lie in licensing proprietary, closed music services or open systems that somehow utilise P2P?

Let’s Sell Recorded Music! Part 2: We Have The Technology, What's The Solution?

2008

The second in a four-part series, this panel will look at what is becoming technically feasible and what might be the best blue-sky model for the UK, while considering the needs and perspective of ISPs and mobile platforms.

Let’s Sell Recorded Music! Part1: Here We Are Now, Entertain Us

2008

This series of think tanks will focus on effective legitimate P2P alternatives and over the course of four events will review what people want, where technology is heading, what the most plausible new models are and how they might be licensed.

Face To Face With The Millennials

2008

Terry McBride takes part in a very special music business initiative. Challenged to put his philosophy into practice, Terry will not only debate his ideas with fellow professionals but in a unique experiment, be confronted with an up and coming British act for whom he will roadmap a path to success live on stage.

Celestial Jukebox: Free Streams Or Pipe Dreams?

2008

This Think Tank will consider whether on-demand streaming can fulfil the celestial jukebox fantasist’s dream to become the predominant method of mass music consumption.

Music's New Conundrum: Too Much Choice?

2007

Web 2.0’s music consumers’ paradise of unlimited music poses one overriding question: how do fans discover the music they want amidst the clamour of a thousand different advisory voices?

The F Word: Monetising Filesharing

2007

This event brings together the leading proponents of the remuneration-for-access model – rightsholders and ISPs – to debate the issues and opportunities of licensing filesharing.

A Word From Our Sponsor...Can Ad Money Mend The Record Business?

2007

MusicTank presents the second of two Think Tank debates looking into the effects of fragmentation of media in a post-YouTube world. Part 2 explores the ongoing transfer of ad revenues from TV to online and the future potential of ad-funded download models.

I Want My MTV?

2007

MusicTank presents the first of two Think Tank debates looking into the effects of fragmentation of media in a post-YouTube world – from mass markets to a mass of niche ones. Part 1 explores the decline of traditional music television and asks what this means for the future consumption and promotion of music via mainstream media.

Pimp My Tune: Making Music Compete With "Free"

2007

This Think Tank will look at sexing up music – with filesharing outstripping downloads by 40:1, is the product, both physical and digital, in need of a marketing makeover? Can we re-brand the very concept of music – making it more desirable and distinct from the illegal alternative? Designer frames as opposed to NHS spectacles?

The Great Digital Debate: How Do You Divvy Up A Download?

2007

This Think Tank will look into the cost of a download – from the perspective of artists, labels and distributors – and ask, is the price structure right if we want to build a viable long-term sales model and, perhaps more importantly, is the revenue being divided fairly?

The Great Gig Grab: Could Live Overshadow Album Sales?

2006

Given the ever-increasing importance of live income, this session will ask who makes the most from this burgeoning sector, who is losing out, and how the situation can be improved for the benefit of venues, promoters, labels, artists and fans alike?

Classical Music: A Tradition With A Future

2006

This Think Tank will consider ways of reinvigorating the classical music market; reviewing the role of digital delivery, live performance, new business models and marketing in growing the classical audience.

Future Radio: Will Digital Kill The Record Biz Star?

2006

This Think Tank will consider whether the mainstream UK public are finally ready to embrace digital radio and if so, whether the same can be said for the music industry?

Sounds Subliminal: Branding The Future With Audio

2006

How and why has music become so integral to branding and media consumption and how it can be increasingly used to enhance a brand in the evolving media, digital and mobile marketplaces?

DRM: Copy Protection vs. Consumer Frustration

2006

How far should DRM go in terms of restricting usage and monitoring consumers before it risks forsaking the trust and respect between producers and consumers of music?

Copyright Review: Getting The Rights Balance

2005

Whether it’s illegal filesharing, copyright term review or CD copy protection, all roads lead to rights. And within this tired metaphor, copyright, first conceived in 1710, risks becoming a quaint cul de sac with a digital bypass running through it.

Whose Song is it Anyway? Creative Collaborations in the Digital Age

2005

In an industry renowned for it’s egos, session musicians are something of an oddity; often better musicians than the artists who call on their services, few music fans can name even one.

Creative Commons - Reservations Over "Some Rights Reserved"

Brainchild of Stamford Law Professor Lawrence Lessig, Creative Commons, or CC, allows creators to distribute their works with some rights reserved’.

All Tomorrow's Student Circuits

2005

MusicTank is honoured to have been invited to produce a session at this year’s International Live Music Conference – the largest of it’s kind outside America.

Classical Music: Sexing Up or Dumbing Down?

2005

At a time of ongoing major label contraction in classical repertoire and artist signings, there appears to be no lack of appetite for multi-million pound deals for young, media-friendly, crossover artists.

On the Analyst's Couch

2005

Was it really as recently as 1999 that the global record industry recorded a record turnover of US $38.5bn?

The Future of Collecting Societies

2004

All quiet on the collecting front? Hardly. A straw poll suggests the alliance between MCPS and PRS may have paid off, with rights overseas now much better represented than a few years ago.

Should the Music Business Grow Up?

2004

Access To Radio: Turn On. Tune In. Cop Out?

2004

In August 2003, a survey of British radio found that nearly 20% of tracks played were Neptunes productions – a US act, (Guardian 20.02.04).

Live Or Unplugged: How Will YOU Perform Under The New Licensing Act?

2004

Label Mergers: Bigger 'n' Better 'n' Rougher 'n' Tougher?

2004

This think tank, which takes place on the eve of the European Commission’s expected publication of its Statement of Objections, will consider the rationale and likely consequences of the proposed Sony / BMG merger.

Urban Music Business Speed Dating

2004

Getting serious about the business of music? Want to know about copyright? Registering a business? How to set up a label?

Music Retail: Dying Or Diversifying?

2004

The times are certainly a changin’ for retail. Tower Records Europe has gone into receivership, Andy’s has closed down, and WH Smiths has stopped selling singles. HMV, meanwhile is expanding, and the supermarkets are selling bucketfuls, and that’s just the real stuff…

Covermounts: Profile, Profit And The Value Of Music

2004

Production of covermount CDs has rocketed in recent years.

The Future Is Now

2003

Part of the Digital Series, this seminar dovetails with the rock music programme.

The Live Music Industry In The Digital Environment

2003

Part of the Digital Series, this think-tank dovetails with the rock music programme

Record Label Marketing And Distribution In The Digital Environment

2003

Part of the Digital Series, this think-tank dovetails with the rock music programme but can be attended as a stand-alone and is not genre specific.

Grassroots Marketing & Audience Development In The Digital Age

2003

Part of the Digital Series, this think-tank dovetails with the rock music programme.

Digital Music: An Industry Update

2003

Part of the Digital Series, this seminar dovetails with the rock music programme

Unsigned To Domestic Success In Rock Music

2003

This is a pioneering new business development project for professionals involved in guitar-based and rock music genres. Participation is free but applicants must commit to attend the project in its entirety.