SXSW panels worth voting for from Bandsintown, Rock Paper Scissors, The Orchard & more

Voting for SXSW 2024 PanelPicker is coming to a close this Sunday, August 20, and we’ve put together an extensive list of panels worthy of your consideration. Anyone can register for a free SXSW account to vote.

Below are the panel titles, descriptions, and links to the voting pages.

Who Gives A Sh!t About Marketing Live Music?

Everyone talks about how to market artists and their music, but not enough attention is given to where most artists make 80% of their revenue: live shows.

So building on the success of last year’s “Who Gives A Sh!t About Indie Music” SXSW panel, four experienced live music marketers, Fabrice Sergent, Managing Partner of Bandsintown, Jamie Loeb, SVP of Marketing, Nederlander Concerts,
Brian Bauer, President, of Bauer Entertainment Marketing, and Alix Rosenberg, Music Media Publishers Lead North America at TikTok, are coming together to discuss the latest tools, tricks, and actionable trends in audience building and live music marketing. Vote here.

From The Orchard

Evolving With Your Fanbase

Community, relationships, and story, all play a major role in developing an artist and an engaging fanbase. Marketers must develop a strategy that builds a community with music as a central pillar, but not the only pillar. In this conversation, speakers will address how to develop your artistic narrative as well as what happens if an artist’s socials aren’t resonating. Building an audience is hard, but maintaining and continuing to grow, is another animal.

Web 2.5: Merging Web2 + Web3 Marketing

The way we consume media is evolving. It’s harder and harder to grab the attention of your audience which is where Web3 comes in. Exclusive and elevated virtual experiences can take fandom to a whole other level, but what’s the goal? Web3 formats shouldn’t be used only for the sake of using Web3. Speakers will discuss how Web3 can be used to enhance your Web2 marketing strategies and how, when used in tandem, can be optimally effective.

From Rock Paper Scissors

AI & Fair Play: Empowering Indie Music with Technology

This session will delve into the realm of possibilities that arise when the indie music industry wholeheartedly embraces artificial intelligence and utilizes innovative implementations of smart contracts to ensure just compensation for indie music & derivative works. Learn the tech tools to open financial opportunities to underserved markets and communities. Learn the methods for providing transparent and fast compensation payouts in the digital landscape. Learn the collaborative opportunities that compensate your contributions and other untapped income streams for artists.

How Music Will Change Your Mind

Music can stimulate neuroplasticity. Recent science and tech developments attest that music can be a powerful tool in psychedelic treatment contexts. The more we understand music, the more we can target its power. In this lively fireside chat, Cathy Applefeld Olson (Hollywood & Mind founder, Forbes contributor) and Oleg Stavitsky of Endel, the functional AI music company, will explore what connects audio, mind, and psychological transformation. They will discuss the shifting conversation around mental health, personalized sound experiences, and how new dynamics will transform the use of music.

Crystallize Your Music Innovation Startup’s Business Model

Dmitri Vietze is the business model whisperer. Music innovation founders’ faces light up when he distills their technical work into a clear statement of where they fit in the music ecosystem. The music industry’s tangled history makes it hard to see the big picture context of your tech innovation. Years in the business as a startup founder and a PR pro have developed Dmitri’s eye. At this workshop, Dmitri will bring participants on stage to show his discovery process in action. He’ll teach you how to shift your perspective to get that 10K foot view now and as you develop your business.

Creator and Label Web3 Meetup: Nurturing Connections

Humans crave finding our tribe, those who truly understand and share our passions. The internet’s latest evolution lets musicians and creators discover unique micro-communities, forming profound emotional bonds with like-minded peeps. Exploring a musician’s multifaceted nature beyond music is vital for creativity. In this meetup, we’ll dive into how Web3 opens doors to even more awesome micro-communities, strengthening bonds beyond the creator space, and its impact on artists’ and fans’ authenticity.

Music Tech Storytelling in the Age of Robot Writing

The coolest things are happening in music and tech. So why are so many of the stories so dull? As mediocre AI-powered and SEO-driven content floods our feeds, the world needs more authentic stories— and deliberate ways to tell them. Let’s dig into telling company stories that reach beyond product specs and executive profiles to move humans and touch cultural chords. Drawing on years of telling complex music and tech stories, the seasoned storytellers of the Music Tectonics podcast will walk leading innovators through a guided storyfinding process that captures people’s passions.

AI Music Meetup

Whether you’re an AI music founder, a record label, or artist manager, now is the time to figure out how AI and music will evolve together. This meetup is built to help you meet more people in a SXSW hour than you might meet in a whole day. This will be facilitated as a lightning fast open mic for intros followed by open networking. This is the spot to learn how to monetize music with AI, learn about the latest music making tools that use AI, share your beliefs on the ethics of AI in music, and more. Brings your QR codes, biz cards, or flyers and let’s get meeting!

DIY Solutions for Artists in 2024

Today, DIY artists have access to a lot of different tools and resources. While being a DIY musician comes with its challenges, the opportunities and advantages presented by the current music landscape make it an exciting and rewarding journey for many passionate artists, from publishing to distributing and live music. Advancements in technology and internet have revolutionized the music industry. DIY musicians can now create, record, produce, and distribute their music from the comfort of their homes. The internet allows them to reach a global audience, and get more opportunities.

The Next Gen of Music and Tech: Gen Z Breaks the Industry

With new models, tools, and technologies emerging in every crevice of the music tech space, everyone from the hobbyist to A-list artist is experiencing a new generation of the music industry. By gathering Gen Z and the other music innovators who want to understand them in one physical space, we can dive into how the future is going to be shaped more than ever by new technologies and consumers’ growing desires for lean-in experiences. It takes each generation’s participation to understand where the industry has come and where it is going.

AI for Musicians: Music School to GRAMMY-Winning Careers

This session will be a multifaceted discussion on how the implementation of AI technology can serve a new future for musical artists, improving distinct stages of their career from experimentation to education, all the way through establishing their artists careers.. Featuring representatives of all stages, along with music AI experts, this panel will offer real-life use cases that demonstrate the benefits of AI to creativity and music careers, intended as a broad response to the ongoing skepticism surrounding AI’s impact on music.

Demystifying Japan: The World’s Second Largest Music Market

Despite Japan being the world’s second largest music market, it remains one of the most challenging and misunderstood industries in the world. What makes the Japanese music market so unique and difficult to break into? We will break down and take a look into the various and deeply unique cultural processes (Japanese record label and publishing infrastructures, fandom culture, physical CD and DVD sales, etc.) and its impact on the local market, while elaborating on the forward-thinking path as the globalization of music continues to be at the forefront of the mainstream music conversation.

Artist Career Coaching: Independence and Financial Literacy

As more models and tools emerge for musical artists to establish independent careers, beyond the confines of traditional label contracts that fail to serve the majority of today’s talent, it is of timely importance that artists become informed of what a business plan for their career may look like. This panel will feature hip hop artist J. Monty and representatives from music financing platform RoyFi to walk the audience through the essential steps of a business plan, from financing to fan relations and maximizing streams, to make a sustainable career a reality.

Music Tech Founders and Inventors Support Group

Creative innovators in music and tech face similar challenges no matter what mad inventions they are bringing to life. Too often they try to face these alone. The Music Tech Founders and Inventors Support Group Meetup is the place for tech founders, inventors, and musical instrument makers to come together, collaborate, network and share their ideas, successes, and struggles to build a supportive community. Learn how other founders and inventors have taken their ideas from the workbench, to beta/prototypes, to market, and share your story!

Artistic Alchemy: Transforming Passion into Profit

Launching a music career is an uphill battle. Emerging artists are faced with upfront costs for recording, touring, and merch, which demand capital. Artists are also tasked with establishing recognition and fan engagement. These promotional efforts take up 50% of an artist’s time and have little compensation potential. Artists need to rely on financial savvy to build a sustainable career. This panel will explore common challenges and the solutions that can help artists gain a deeper understanding of how to translate their hard work into viable income.

Hit Songs on the Go: The Mobile Music-Making Revolution

The music industry is experiencing a groundbreaking shift fueled by a device we carry in our pocket: the mobile phone. For the first time, artists are making music on phones en masse, and some are landing label deals. This transformative paradigm has put the power to compose chart-topping hits in the hands of every aspiring musician, creating a new, counterculture music business. Join BandLab CEO & Co-founder Meng Ru Kuok to discuss how mobile music creation is not just changing the way people make music, but how this new era is changing the music industry itself.

From Likes to Loyalty: Building Music’s Fan-Centric Future

In the era of mass music creation, artists increasingly recognize the need to own destinations and directly engage with fans. There’s more competition than ever before and less attention to boot. In an ever-expanding and fragmented market, what does the next step in music fandom look like? How do artists build deeper fan connections, and how can fandom translate into new forms of revenue? In this panel, discover how musicians are leveraging the latest technological advancements to enhance their fan engagement strategies.

Dancefloor Renaissance: The Renewed Popularity of EDM

Electronic music has always been part of the cultural zeitgeist, but its influence has expanded dramatically over the last few years. From Beyoncé’s Grammy-winning house album Renaissance to the rise of hyperpop to Fred again.., Skrillex, and Four Tet’s seminal Coachella headlining set, electronic music has felt more accessible than ever.

This discussion will discuss the ways marketing electronic music traditionally differs from other genres like pop and hip-hop, how rapid shifts in technology have changed this, and how electronic artists can connect with their audiences in 2024.

Hip Hop’s 50th: Balancing Culture, Commerce & Conscience

Hip Hop is turning 50 and there’s a lot to celebrate. What happens when the celebration is over? The genre’s impact on global culture, across music, fashion, dance, art and beyond, makes this a crucial moment to revisit questions of ownership, authenticity and purpose as they relate to Hip Hop culture and those that belong to it. Join GRAMMY nominated, Austin-based artist SaulPaul, and entrepreneur and advocate Ajene Watson, for a fireside chat that addresses these questions via a discussion of the digital realm and the internet landscape, as well as redistribution of wealth and philanthropy.

Illuminating the Black Box: A New Era of Data Transparency

The term “black box” commonly refers to a revenue pool at a collection society where the rightful songwriters and/or publishers, whose songs have generated income, cannot be identified or located. An initiative is underway to illuminate & eliminate these black boxes by increasing transparency into the previously inaccessible data. The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC), PRS for Music & CrossBorderWorks discuss how the industry wide efforts towards transparency & accountability are transforming the industry, paving the way for better licensing and payment practices.

Matchmaker: “Creator-Market-Fit” for the Music Business

With the continuous growth of the creator economy and the music business, artists now face heightened competition for audience attention, resulting in a smaller slice of the pie. To thrive, artists must take charge of their own businesses but also must have access to tools, technology, and resources for scaling – similar to the success achieved by SAAS companies. In this panel discussion, we will delve into tangible approaches for artists to discover their “Creator-Market-Fit” and explore the strategies they need to achieve it, empowering them to navigate the evolving landscape successfully.

Bruce Houghton is the Founder and Editor of Hypebot, a Senior Advisor at Bandsintown, President of the Skyline Artists Agency, and a Berklee College Of Music professor.