Increasing international focus on SPOT – big players are attracted to the festival
SPOT is ready for take-off, and the next three days Aarhus will be the center of the international music business. More than 250 shows, and the biggest seminar programme to date. 300 international media and business people – ready to hook up with their more than thousand Danish collegues.
After many years of hard work, it has become easier and easier for SPOT to get bigger and bigger players (record labels, publishing companies, etc.) from both the British and the American markets to play ball. Commercial success for Lukas Graham, Volbeat, Mø etc. as well as niche breakthroughs and deals for Iceage (punk rock), Communions (indie), Liss (pop/r’n’b) have also played an important role in this transformation of Denmark into an attractive music market.
In addition to the traditional visits from international agents from William Morris (US/UK) and Primary Talent (UK) and A&Rs from prestigious record companies such as Downtown Records (US), Terrible Records (US), Secretly Canadian (US), and PMR Records (UK), it is also the ambition this year to attract music lawyers such as David Jacobs from Grubman, Shire & Meiselas, who has worked with Mø since the beginning of her international career, PR agents from Bang On PR (UK), Your Army (UK), Kartel (UK), and Kobalt Music Group, London promoters like Bird On The Wire (UK), Adam Ryan, who is in charge of booking at the UK’s most important music industry festival The Great Escape (UK), and label specialists like Zena White from The Other Hand (UK), as the Danish music business is stronger than ever, and many of today’s players have the option to release and promote Danish acts abroad without necessarily having to hand over their rights to a label situated abroad.
“What is more we have had access to more resources for our UK PR work, and this year at SPOT we have ten UK journalists from influential media like The Independent, Crack Magazine, The Guardian, Wonderland Magazine, and The 405.“, says MXD’s London representative Lisa Marxen, about the extensive invitational work in the UK, that lies ahead of SPOT.
LARGE GERMAN DELEGATION
In addition: again this year, SPOT benefits from a large group of delegates from Germany – by far the biggest delegation from one country. Major booking agencies, FKP Scorpio, Selective Artists, and Neuland. Several influential labels, like Grönland, Domino, Universal Music and hfn music. And important media: Intro, Backspin, MusikExpress, Kulturnews, 1Live and Radio Eins.
Furthermore SPOT will also be visited by major Festival events like Eurosonic (NL), Rock For People Festival (CZ), Reeperbahn Festival (DE) and SZIGET Festival (HU).
AND NOW SPOT+ ….
Not only does a lot of international business delegates participate in SPOT, many also contribute to the conference program at SPOT+. With a comprehensive 2-day conference program, SPOT+ 2017 emphasises on some of the current trends within the international music business, focusing on music & brands, sync, modern artist management, music cities, digital, streaming & the latest “talk of town”, blockchain.
Among others you can meet: Antti Kosonen (Co-Founder & COO, PME), Babak Azami (founder & Manager, RMH Sweden), Benji Rogers (CEO & Co-founder, dotBlockChainMusic), Chris Cooke (MD & Business Editor, CMU Insights) Arnon Woolfson (Head of Entertainment, Synergy Agency), Jordan Passman (CEO & Founder, scoreAscore), Josh Rabinowitz (Executive Vice President & Director of Music, Townhouse), Linn Fijal (Producer & engineer, Riksmixningsverket), Tess Taylor (President, NARIP), and not least Thomas Golubic (Music Supervisor, SuperMusicVision – talking about “How to Breaking Bad”.
We’re looking forward to meeting all of you