Conventions & Awards

MidemNet: Serving Artists, Serving Fans

The Sunday afternoon MidemNet panel "Serving Artists, Serving Fans. What Is The Best Organization?" looked at different models and methods for developing the strongest artist to fan relationship. A few takeaways:

  • Kayne
    Bryan Calhoun,     VP of New Media & External Affairs at SoundExchange is also part of Kayne West's online team.  He suggested that artists need to not just blog about themselves, but also about other things the think are cool. It keeps things more authentic. The site is a revenue stream for West.
  • Martin Thornkvist manager of  the Songs I Wish I Had Written label and indie label cooperative The Sweedish Model suggested smartly, "I'd rather have 1 million listeners and 100 buyers than 100 listeners and 100 fans." Also,' "You can't control the music, but you should control the conversation by driving the traffic to your own web site."

  • David Schulhof of Evergreen Copyrights advocated that a publisher can help to guide an artist's career. His example is a Nick Drake tribute record via a Jack Johnson's Brushfire records.
  • Kenny Gates of Belgium label PIAS says labels must step
    up and deliver more marketing and promotion to prove value to the
    artists.  The label just announced the signing of Placebo for Europe.
  • Also on the panel: Tom Clark (manager Robbie Williams) and Marcel Engh, VP Brand Entertainment, Sony Music Europe. The Moderator is Mark Sutherland, the International Bureau Chief of Billboard.

    • Bruce Houghton on 01/18/2009 in Conventions & Awards | Permalink | Comments (3)
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    3 Comments

    1. Just came back feeling from Cannes Feeling very rejected. I’m an artist that needs to do a lot of DIY for myself and thought I might be able to discover something new there. What I found left me thinking that perhaps they should have changed the subtitle of this event from “Serving artists, serving fans” to “Taking massive amounts of money from artists, serving fans.” They asked me on Sun., a day after this started, for more than one thousand dollars to get in the door. Keep up the great service MIDEM! This event was clearly put on for those artists that have already succeeded. What a scam.

    3. Most of these shows are geared to those that have money & to those that want to make more money.
      I think the main benefit of all these shows/conferences are the contacts DIY folks can make. To help the DIY folks, there should be complimentary passes a DIY artist could request well in advance.
      But, the bottom line is these shows only benefit a select few. I think a DIY artist gain more of the “How To’s” from books/video’s that are available for a fraction of to half the cost of going to one of these conferences. Examples would be: Tom Jackson Productions out of Nashville & Anastasia Brown’s book: Make Me A Star. You can learn more from Anastasia & Tom for less than $500. Then you have folks like Bob Baker & Ariel Hyatt that offer great advice & services to DIY artist & a lot of it is free.
      However, regardless of who or where you go to learn more about the music DIY busines, one thing everyone should know by now: “Hard productive work 24/7 is the only way a DIY artist will make it. The main component of becoming successful is how large you can build your “TRUE BLUE FAN BASE”.
      SUMMARY: DIY is not easy & requires many long hours & building a fan base of 5,000 to 10,000+.

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