Music Cities Convention 2015 Report © Scottish Music Industry Association Ltd.
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Music Cities Convention 2015 Report Learnings from the inaugural Music Cities Convention in Brighton on Wednesday 13 May 2015. Report written by Dougal Perman, vice chair of SMIA and director of Inner Ear.
Event Taking place at the Komedia arts venue in Brighton, the Music Cities Convention was lively, interesting and engaging throughout. Speakers came from all over the world to share inspiring stories and present challenges, and propose solutions. Attendees were from many different cities too. The audience was highly engaged, with lots of questions and discussion in the room and an equal amount of instant reporting and conversation on Twitter. Everything about the event was slick and professional, despite the fact it was the first one. Minor issues in delivery of the event went unnoticed or were easily forgiven by the enthusiastic participants involved. I think it felt like good value for money and everybody present shared a sense of purpose.
Interaction Benny and I have compiled a Storify account of the enthusiastic conversation going on via Twitter throughout the day (which I contributed to a lot as @thesmia, @innerearuk and @dougalperman). storify.com/innerearuk/musiccities-convention The only thing I think would have been beneficial is for there to have been some kind of structured networking so that more people could get to know each other and make even more useful connections. I spoke to people from Montreal, Milan, Barcelona, Berlin and London but I would have loved the opportunity to speak to even more.
Music Cities Convention 2015 Report © Scottish Music Industry Association Ltd.
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Content The full schedule for the convention is available on its website: musiccitiesconvention.com/schedule-full-v3/. All of the talks, presentations and discussions were interesting. Some were very relevant to us (SMIA members and the Scottish industry scene as a whole), others were simply inspiring. The collective tweets, compiled in the Storify post linked to above, give a good impression of the day. I’ll summarise each session and make reference to anything that was of particular interest. To start with in “Thinking, The Music Industry and Residents” we heard from David Grive of Musictec and Becc Bates from Arts Council South Australia who talked about public private partnership in the arts, especially in Adelaide, which has ties with Edinburgh due to both cities’ Festival Fringes. Successful peaceful protest against licensing laws that would impact on the local music scene and celebration of arts and culture were strong themes. “The City As A Festival Marketplace” presented case studies of Melbourne by Patrick Donovan from Music Victoria and Cape Town by Valentino Barrioseta. In Melbourne much is made of Aussie Rules Football but Music Victoria calculated that music events attract many more people and so the focus was amended accordingly. The Cape Town story was inspiring in terms of using music to engage with young people from townships and how club promoters are trying to use music to integrate cultures. Through “Small Venues, Big Developers” Dave Haslam spoke passionately about the dangers of interfering with a city’s music scene in terms of buildings that attract cheap and nasty chain bars and clubs. He told the story of how Manchester City Council had stood up for the Hacienda when the police wanted it shut down for drink and drug offenses – something especially pertinent given the situation The Arches is in at the moment. Mark Davyd from the Music Venues Trust talked about the plight of music venues all over the UK. I spoke with Beverley Whitrick, strategic director of the Music Venues Trust, and the Music Venues Association that sits alongside it, who said they have members in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness but nothing in Glasgow. I recognise the value in joining and think SMIA should invite MVA/MVT to present their benefits to venues in Glasgow, and indeed all over Scotland.
Music Cities Convention 2015 Report © Scottish Music Industry Association Ltd.
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“Property Developers, Development, Creativity and Space” featured Nico Zimmer from Technology Foundation Berlin and Matthias Rauch of Mannheim City Government talking about investment in buildings and use of physical space to facilitate learning and development in music. In “Changing From A Festival City To A Venue City” Carles Sala from Barcelona City Council and Kevin McManus of Liverpool Vision talked about how festivals had envigorated their respective cities and could be used to focus attention on what happens, and has happened as a result of the festivals, all year round. Parallels and learnings here for Edinburgh in particular but also for Glasgow and other towns and cities in Scotland, to a lesser extent. “Building A Music Business Ecosystem To Build A City” focused on Selam in Ethiopia and featured Teshome Wondimu and Egerbladh Eurenius talking enthusiastically about the impressive and inspiring work they are doing to build a music industry from the ground up, and the benefits that brings to Ethiopia. “How Groningen and Montréal Are Retaining Skilled Youth And Creating Growth And Jobs Through Music Industry Policy” was presented by Paul de Rook, the Vice Mayor of Groningen and Sébastien Nasra from M for Montréal. Paul de Rook told us how Groningen, a small city on the edge of the Netherlands, puts culture first in terms of spending priorities and enjoys high productivity and a great quality of life as a result. An enviable position to be in but probably not one that many cities could relate to. Sébastien Nasra talked about how Montréal has successfully used public-private partnerships to promote the city for its musical activity and endeavour. There are direct learnings for Glasgow here. The last presentation of the day was “Quantifying and Qualifying the ‘Music City Phenomenon’” by Amy Terrill from Music Canada who gave us a preview of the world music city report she has been involved in compiling and publishing which we must get a copy of. In some ways it acts as a roadmap for how to maximise the advantages that being a music city bring to people and place. In addition to the presentations described above there were some panel discussions with audience Q&A and networking breaks.
Music Cities Convention 2015 Report © Scottish Music Industry Association Ltd.
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Learnings Key learnings that I took away from the Music Cities Convention are: ● City festivals can be an effective marketing tool for a city. Edinburgh is all over this, of course, and Glasgow has Celtic Connections plus a suite of smaller local festivals but there could be an opportunity to join up musical and marketing activities. ● All music venues are important to a city’s culture and economy, especially “grassroots” venues. The Music Venues Trust seems to be a useful organisation worth working with and supporting. ● We should try to quantify the popularity and importance of music activity in our cities. ● In addition to promoting Scotland’s cities on their general attractions and merits, Visit Scotland and local organisations like Glasgow City Marketing Bureau and Marketing Edinburgh can and should create music-specific tourist adverts, especially for Glasgow.
Future The next convention will happen in Washington DC in late October. We should keep in touch with Sound Diplomacy and remain involved in the emergent network of music cities that this convention has established. Perhaps we could bring the convention to Glasgow one year around the time of Showcase Scotland at Celtic Connections? Maybe there’s room for us to put someone forward to join the Music Cities Convention Steering Committee. As a network for sharing knowledge, information, inspiration, ideas, problems, solutions, challenges and opportunities, I found the Music Cities Convention to be great value and something very worthwhile participating in.