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As the summer months are left firmly behind, IQ injects a beacon of light into the dark, winter nights, in the form of the latest edition of IQ Magazine, available to read online now.
Issue #86 sees IQ take an in-depth look at the fast-growing Hispanic music scene, examining the new generation of musical talent and powerhouse promoters fuelling the international Latin music boom. On the other side of the Atlantic, Spain’s live music market has reached unprecedented levels in recent years, with an “enviable” number of festivals, “broad” selection of promoters and growing public demand.
Elsewhere, IQ 86 celebrates 30 years in the business for AEG Presents CEO Steve Homer; we find out why fans are taking to the seas for their festival experiences; and talk to the specialists providing the (literal) framework for live events.
The magazine also includes highlights from the fifth annual International Festival Forum (IFF), which took place in September, with speakers including UTA’s Greg Lowe, FKP Scorpio’s Stephan Thanscheidt, Mojo Concerts’ Kim Bloem and Live Nation Belgium’s Herman Schueremans
The majority of magazine content will appear online over the coming months, with the usual selection of analysis, news, expert comment and new signings appearing alongside features. For those unable to wait for their essential live music industry fix, click here to subscribe now.
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Independent festival Trans Musicales, France’s leading “see-them-here-first” music event, has released the full line-up for its 2019 edition, which takes place in Rennes, Brittany, from 4 to 8 December.
Founded in 1979 by Jean-Louis Brossard and Béatrice Macé, Trans Musicales has featured early-career performances from the likes of Daft Punk, Bon Iver, Björk, LCD Soundsystem, Jamiroquai, Lenny Kravitz and Justice.
The festival now takes place across 25 venues in the city of Rennes, from small clubs to a 6,500-capacity concert hall. Last year, 58,000 people attended the event over five days – including 43,500 repeat attendees – to see artists such as Flamingods, Underground System and Pongo.
Trans Musicales also serves as one of the French live industry’s largest gatherings, welcoming more than 1,600 delegates to its 2018 event.
“Music, like all art forms, has infinite forms of expression”
A total of 87 acts from 49 different countries are playing this year’s festival, including Parisian electronic music crew Acid Arab, San Francisco ensemble Gilberto Rodriguez y Los Intocables, Taiwanese group Go Go Machine Orchestra, Senegalese/French “electro-sabar’ group Guiss Guiss Bou Bess, New York DJ Marc Rebillet, UK singer and rapper Maverick Sabre, and Thai psych funk band YĪN YĪN, as seen at the International Festival Forum (IFF) last month.
A festival “priding itself on booking acts before they break”, the programming at Trans Musicales spans all genres. “Music, like all art forms, has infinite forms of expression,” comments festival co-founder Macé. “Different aesthetics, types of stage presence – it is in a neverending movement, always evolving and changing.”
Macé, along with fellow Trans Musicales co-founder Brossard, received the Lifetime Achievement Awards at the 2015 European Festival Awards.
Tickets for Trans Musicales 2019 are available here, with three-day passes priced from €32 to €69.
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Following a packed opening two days of panel discussions, networking events, speed meetings, parties and showcases in Camden, north London, the final day of the International Festival Forum 2019 is finally upon us.
Kicking off proceedings was the ‘Niche Work (if you can get it)’ panel, moderated by award-winning IQ news editor Jon Chapple and featuring Pohoda festival boss Michal Kaščák, Mojo Concerts promoter Maarten van Vugt, CAA electronic music agent Maria May, Montreux Jazz Festival’s head of programming Michaela Maiterth and Seaside Touring’s Thomas Kreidner.
The panel of experts in non-rock events, with representatives from the jazz, electronic music, heavy metal and hip-hop scenes, explored the merits of genre-specific festivals.
Topics discussed included the rise of urban music and the electronic music explosion, jazz’s longevity and the success of some large heavy metal events, such as Wacken Open Air. Pohoda boss Kaščák mentioned the importance of opening up the space up for everyone, stressing that “quality is always key, whatever the niche”.
Fan demographics also came into play, with panellists discussing the difficulties of handling younger, more inexperienced fans and the various security issues this can throw up. Hip-hop shows and certain, more mainstream, electronic acts draw a younger crowd. “Cancellations still cause a lot of headaches for us in the urban music business, which leads to a lot of disappointment among fans,” said van Vugt. “The more mature our crowd gets, the more they’ll understand this.”
The oft-talked about penchant for comfort among festivalgoers was also discussed, as the panel attempted to pinpoint the type of fan that is most likely to be unfazed by getting down and dirty. Ravers definitely don’t mind the mud, confirmed May, as long as the sound system is “amazing”. Metal fans are also not fussy, added Kreidner, whereas Pohoda fans value clean toilets above all else, joked the Pohoda boss.
“Cancellations still cause a lot of headaches for us in the urban music business, which leads to a lot of disappointment among fans”
Elsewhere on the final day of IFF 2019, delegates reflected on the previous day’s showcases, which included an entertaining performance by multi-platinum-selling band the Darkness. The band’s frontman Justin Hawkins joked that the show brought him back to the good old days, performing in intimate London grassroots venue the Garage.
Other showcases came from Sports Team (Matt Bates, Primary Talent), Pengshui (Beckie Sugden, X-ray Touring) and Whispering Sons (Franky Roels, Toutpartout), as well as a country-focused showcase by Dutch artists including Jarreau Vandal (Michael Harvey-Bray, Paradigm).
Plenty more music has also been scheduled for the final day of IFF, with showcase sessions presented by ITB, Paradigm and ATC Live, with acts including Charlotte (Alex Hardee, Paradigm), London-based six-piece Black Country, New Road (Clemence Renaut, ATC Live) and guitar trailblazers Life (Steve Zapp, ITB).
Wrapping up IFF’s fifth anniversary event in style, a joint birthday party will be held with European metal festival behemoth Wacken Open Air (30 this year) and Japan’s Summer Sonic’s (20 this year) later on in the evening.
The International Festival Forum takes place in Camden from 24–26 September, with festival and agency delegates from 40 markets represented.
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The conference programme of the International Festival Forum (IFF) drew to a close today (26 September) with the IFF Keynote, which saw Herman Schueremans, Rock Werchter founder and one of Europe’s most influential festival pioneers, joining ILMC founder Martin Hopewell in conversation.
Topics covered by the promoter and agency veterans, respectively, included Schueremans’ early days in the business, live music as cultural heritage and the changing festival scene – which the Live Nation Belgium CEO said is under threat from samey line-ups and festival operators seeing events as “brands” rather than cultural institutions.
Central to the conversation was a rising concern about the festivals Schueremans views as “cultural institutions” that play a key role in a society.
“Festivals sustain the live industry just as the Amazon rainforest sustains the world’s climate,” he said. “They’re the lungs of live music business, and we have to take care to protect them.”
In particular, said the Live Nation Belgium Head, the threat is primarily from newer events organised “for the wrong reasons… The only thing these kinds of festivals are doing is driving up prices,” he stated, “and the passion is starting to disappear.”
Talking about Rock Werchter, the event he founded 40 years ago, Schueremans credited teamwork and the creation of a community spirit as the key to his success. “The general perception is that people should feel welcome at Werchter, at home. It should be a place they want to go to.”
Reflecting on his early days as a student club promoter, Schueremans initially embarked on studies to become a historian, but soon decided that a career in the live business was where he was headed and dropped out of university. “When you really want something, you just go for it,” he explains.
Examples of festivals with poor organisation, such as Woodstock and the early years of the Jazz Bilzen festival, spurred Schueremans on to do his own, as “we knew we could do it better,” he said.
“Nowadays you make one mistake and you’re burned”
When Werchter started, it was a “handicap” to have a festival in such a small country, said Schueremans, as it was difficult to persuade agents to book their acts in Belgium for only one date. To solve this, Schueremans created twin festivals Rock Torhout, to offer a double date to agents. This format spawned copycats across Europe, says Schueremans, referencing the UK’s Reading and Leeds festivals and Germany’s Rock am Ring/Rock im Park.
Hopewell cast his mind back to when Schueremans first entered his office at Chrysalis Agency in London, as a “young whippersnapper”. Sending acts to play shows abroad seemed “exotic”, said Hopewell, and there was definitely “a sense of adventure in the air”.
The pair mused on the fact that when they were starting out there was no “laid-out track” or “map” to follow. “It was all invention,” said Hopewell, adding that he has a “huge amount of respect for promoters”, who are the ones that “make it all happen”.
When asked what the tipping point was for Werchter, Schueremans puts it down to the type of bands they had playing. Dire Straits, U2 and the Talking Heads were among those to cut their teeth at Werchter in the early days. “We were the guys with the young acts,” said Schueremans. “We were just there at the right time and in the right place – simply because we loved that music and we fought for it.”
Hopewell agrees that Schueremans began when there was a definite “changing of the guard” between the older and younger generations, so the timing was spot-on.
“In those days, you could make mistakes and as long as you excused yourself, you could win sympathy back,” stated Schueremans, “but nowadays you make one mistake and you’re burned.”
Talk turned to the changing festival scene and the growing expectations of comfort and cleanliness among audiences. “We’ve spoiled them, maybe,” joked Schueremans, adding that the challenge to do better every year is good motivation. “If you’re not trying to do that, then you better stop,” says the Werchter boss.
“Festivals sustain the live industry just as the Amazon sustains the world’s climate”
Over the years, live music became more of a business, too, “with all the advantages and disadvantages that brings.” A plus side, said Schueremans, is that festivals no longer experience too many cancellations (with a notable exception in “one particular genre”, he added).
“The last thing I want in this business is that we create bureaucracy – we should not make the same mistakes as the record companies did,” he says. “We need to be organised as an army but able to act as a guerrilla, quickly and efficiently.”
Hopewell closed by suggesting that the industry could start doing deals based on some idea of budget and system of transparency. The pair also expressed their dislike for exclusivity clauses, which Hopewell noted have “crept in like viruses” over the years.
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“The discussion about festival billing is becoming more and more unreasonable. Today we’d like to start a healthy and productive discussion.”
That’s how panel chair Kim Bloem, of the Netherlands’ Mojo Concerts, opened the second session of IFF 2019, which dealt with the thorny subject of the ordering of festival bills. Joining Bloem was Kazia Davy of Echo Location Talent (UK), Ian Evans of IME Music (UK), Thomas Zsifkovits of Barracuda Music (Austria), and Julia Gudzent of Melt! Booking (Germany).
Despite Bloem’s assertion that it’s everyone’s “mutual interest” to stop wasting time discussing the minutiae of festival posters, Zsifkovits said: “Everyone has their own interest. I wouldn’t say there is mutual interest. Agents want to get their artists as high as possible, and the promoter wants to highlight the people who are going to sell tickets.”
Contrary to popular opinion, said Gudzent, when it comes to festival slots, later isn’t always better. “I had a really good agent calling me for Melt! Festival this year asking if a band could play earlier so they’d have less competition, and would be able to play against lesser-known acts,” she said. “So the latest slot isn’t always the best slot.”
Nor does a band’s slot have to necessarily correspond with their position onf a poster, suggested Davy. “As an agent, you don’t want your artist clashing with the headliner on main stage, even if they’re headlining in a tent,” she explained. “But you still might want them on poster as a headliner.”
“We’re all in the same boat: we want everyone to be happy,” said Evans, who has booked festivals including Y Not, Truck, Victorious and Tramlines.
“We’re all in the same boat: we want everyone to be happy”
Dismissing the suggestion that an alphabetised line-up could be the way forward, he said: “You need to make it clear to the public what’s on, and to show where we’ve spent our money. If we book, for instance, ZZ Top and the XX, that might be where we’ve spent all our money – so A–Z doesn’t work for us.”
“About five years ago at Melt!, we billed them all alphabetically because a lot of the acts are all on the same level, effectively,” added Gudzent. “But after a few years, it didn’t work anymore because people couldn’t spot the headliners. No one wants to read till the end…”
Speaking from the floor, Roskilde booker Anders Wahren said his festival uses a mathematical method of representing acts: “100% [font size] for headliners, then 90%, then 70%, then 50%, then even 40% for up-and-coming acts…
“If all of them wanted to have discussions about their placement, I wouldn’t have the time to do anything else. So everyone goes alphabetically in those categories.”
Ultimately, concluded Bloem, there’s “no golden rule” for how to order a festival poster.
“But I hope that for next year, we can be a bit nicer to each other and trust one another,” she said. “We have to be working together better and not just looking anally at font sizes.”
The International Festival Forum takes place in Camden, north London, from 24–26 September, with festival and agency delegates from 40 markets represented.
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The weather, cancellations, artist fees (of course) and the ever-earlier festival booking window were among the topics tackled by the panellists of the Festival Season 2019, the latest edition of IFF’s traditional opening session.
Hosted by UTA’s Greg Lowe, the session welcomed Anna Sjölund of Live Nation Sweden, Mikolaj Ziolkowski of Poland’s Open’er Festival, Solo agent Charly Beedell-Tuck, FKP Scorpio’s Stephan Thanscheidt and WME’s Russell Warby for a post-festival season round-up of the key issues, successes, trials and tribulations of 2019.
FKP MD Thanscheidt, whose festivals include Hurricane and Southside (Germany), Provinssi (Finland), Gården (Sweden) and Best Kept Secret (Netherlands), joked that it’s “the first time in four or five years that I’m not sat here crying and complaining about the weather!” With largely sunny and dry conditions, for FKP it was, finally a “normal season,” he said.
“I have to say a little bit the opposite,” said Ziolkowski. “It was an okay year, but worse than 2018. Yourope [the European Festival Association] did their first survey about this year and it [found the market] was slightly down. For us, it was a good year – a regular year, but not as great as 2018. We had two festivals sold out, one was OK.
“I’d say it was more difficult to book artists in 2019 – and fewer festivals sold out and less tickets were sold.”
Sjölund said Live Nation Sweden had a “fantastic year”, with the successful launch of Lollapalooza Stockholm, while WME’s Warby commented that it “seemed this year that all audiences were well served. Whether it was the pop and urban acts, or AOR – there was an audience for all kinds of stuff.
“I’d say it was more difficult to book artists in 2019”
“Sometimes the booking can be quite linear, with people only thinking about what the biggest trend is, but I don’t think that wasn’t the case this year. I think Lollapalooza [Stockholm] is a good example – they had a good balance there.”
“The audiences are there in different markets,” he added, “and they came out in great numbers.”
Asked by Lowe whether the festival sector is at risk of overexposure, Ziolkowski compared festivals to the major labels in the previous decade. “We’re in a really good place, but the big labels thought the same previously,” he explained. “Festivals are working on really small margins, really small profits, so when artist fees, production, supplier costs, everything is rising, it’s more difficult to make a profit, and that will affect the market.”
Festivals are under increased pressure to “deliver an experience”, added Sjölund, “and that costs money. You can’t have a festival where the audience is not happy – where they’re standing in line for the toilets, for food, for beer – so you’ve got to spend the money to make experience enjoyable.”
“To say this very clearly: In future, festivals will have problem if there’s no magic money coming from anywhere else,” said Thanscheidt. “Festivals are hard to break [even on] nowadays. Fees for headliners are not reasonable: just because someone, somewhere, will pay it – and they always will – doesn’t mean it’s reasonable.
“We’re steering into a dead-end street. We can’t raise ticket prices any more or we lose people.”
Festivals are under increased pressure to “deliver an experience”, said Sjölund, “and that costs money”
“We have to treat festivals like a milch cow,” added Ziolkowski. “It’s in all our interests to keep it healthy and not kill it.
“We can increase costs sometimes, we can increase the ticket price a bit, but we can’t have 100% higher artist fees year on year.”
Talk then turned to cancellations, with Sjölund revealing that Live Nation “had a shit year” when it came to artists pulling out: Chance the Rapper, cancelled the third day of Lollapalooza, for example, and the promoter had 12 cancellations, including headliner Cardi B, at Way Out West.
“My acts don’t cancel without good reason,” joked Warby, who added that it has to be a “serious injury”, alluding to Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl’s broken leg, for one of his acts to pull out.
“We’ve all heard those stories or had some experience with that, when an artist is meant to be on site and they’re still at the hotel but refusing to leave,” he continued. “You’re aware of it, so you’ve got to be ahead of it and prepare for it.
“Especially with urban artists, who don’t have trucks full of equipment, things will go wrong. When you have an artist playing a late-night slot in Spain and then performing in Finland the next day you might have a problem, so you’ve got to take that into account when routing a tour.”
“Come Christmas it’s nice to be pretty much done”
With the booking window getting earlier every year, Lowe asked panellists about the challenges involved in working in what is effectively a year-round festival season.
“It’s become really difficult, both for festivals and agents,” said Ziolkowski. “Even artists who are a 30,000 to 50,000 [capacity] level now want offers in April.”
He added that live music could perhaps take inspiration from football, “where they have a transfer window. Once that’s over, it’s done – thank you very much until next year. They do it, so it is possible!”
Conversely, Beedell-Tuck and Sjölund said they welcome the earlier booking window. “The nature of the role has changed as the year just becomes one long festival,” said Beedell-Tuck. “The pressure from management to get the year wrapped up has increased, but, like Anna, I feel good about that – from a human perspective it can be overwhelming, but come Christmas it’s nice to be pretty much done, to be honest.”
“It used to be that festivals were looking headliners come March or April [the same year],” added Warby. “That’s never going to happen again.
“It’s driven by US festivals like Coachella, who announce first week of January. They have a lot more dollars, they can afford to pay artists more, and you’re going to find people are already booked in your windows in the US. So if you want to stand a chance you need to get in early.”
The International Festival Forum takes place in Camden, north London, from 24–26 September, with festival and agency delegates from 40 markets represented.
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The fifth International Festival Forum (IFF) kicked off today, Tuesday 24 September, with a day of speed meetings between agent and festival delegates.
IFF, an invitation-only event for festival bookers and booking agents, is taking place at venues around Camden, North London, from 24 to 26 September.
This year’s sold-out edition has doubled the amount of networking space around the main venue, Dingwalls, and introduced pop-up agency offices within, or close by, the conference.
United Talent Agency (UTA), one of IFF’s agency partners, is hosting the opening party tonight at the Camden Assembly, allowing delegates to begin their conference in style, with an evening of canapes and cocktails.
Later on, a showcase by fellow partner Solo Agency sees artists Chinchilla, Electric Enemy, Wild Front and Paradisia perform at IFF venue the Monarch.
IFF, an invitation-only event for festival bookers and booking agents, is taking place at venues around Camden, North London, from 24 to 26 September
Other showcase highlights over the next few days include Brighton buzz band Squid (ATC Live) London-based six-piece Sports Team (Primary Talent); guitar trailblazers Life (ITB); alt-rockers Happyness (Pitch & Smith); 21-year old Hull native and hotly tipped new talent Charlotte (Paradigm); and Niklas Paschburg (Toutpartout).
X-ray Touring’s showcase offering, meanwhile, includes multi-platinum-selling band the Darkness.
Conference sessions begin tomorrow, with topics including festival billing, consolidation, competition from new market entrants, gender splits on line-ups, and niche events appearing on the bill. This year’s IFF Keynote interview is Rock Werchter founder and Live Nation Belgium head Herman Schueremans.
To wrap up IFF’s fifth anniversary event on Thursday evening, a joint birthday party will be held with European metal festival behemoth Wacken Open Air (30 this year) and Japan’s Summer Sonic’s (20 this year).
Full event information can be found at www.iff.rocks.
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Bol Festival is the biggest festival of independent music in Russia, based in Moscow and co-promoted by the Pop Farm concert agency and Russian indie music promoter Stefan Kazaryan.
Started five years ago as a one-day, one-stage event with ten acts on the line-up, this year’s edition grew to three days (5–7 July) and seven stages, hosting not only a great range of Russian musicians but also loads of international acts – the Good, the Bad and the Queen, Death Grips, Sophie, Warmduscher, Black Midi, Fontaines DC and Algiers – and a separate programme for modern theatre, a wide-reaching educational programme and a stand-up comedy stage.
At IFF, Pop Farm will present the highlights of the Russian acts from this year’s festival: emo-punk trio Pasosh, daring ironic experimentalists Inturist and electronic hip-hop duo with vibrant female vocals Aigel.
Pasosh is a Russian emo-punk band from Moscow, founded by Petar Martic and Kirill Gorodniy after playing in rap-duo Prigay Kiska. It currently consists of lead singer and bassist Petar Martic, guitarist Kirill Gorodniy and drummer Grisha Drach.
Starting in 2015, the band performed in small venues around Moscow and did a couple of tours. Today, Pasosh is the one of the biggest underground Russian bands, the symbol of youth and coming of age. Themes of their songs vary from parties, day-to-day life in Russia, freedom of mind and being a small man in a big world.
At IFF, Pop Farm will present the highlights of the Russian acts from this year’s Bol Festival
Inturist is the most unpredictable musical project in Moscow. It looks into the deep abyss of everyday life, takes out random items and gives them infernal properties –immersing you into a trance equal to daily machine work or to attempts to call the customer support of your bank; and deceives, as the weather forecast in the Russian Far East.
At the heart of Inturist’s approach are spontaneous creative solutions and improvisation collected in some semblance of a musical performance, viewed by visitors of festivals SKIF, Tallinn Music Week, BOL, Garnir, the parties of Arma 17 and many other impossibly trendy events.
Aigel is the poetry of Aigel Gaisina laid to the foundation of electronic hip hop of Ilya Baramia. It is sometimes hard, sometimes hypnotic, free from the most unpleasant genre cliches and generally contradicting mainstream hip hop.
In August Aigel released their third studio album, Eden – an autobiographical work, about home, written in continuous travel.
Pop Farm’s Bol Festival showcase takes place upstairs at the Lock Tavern on Wednesday 25 September, starting at 9pm. For more information, visit the International Festival Forum website or download the IFF 2019 app.
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Dutch Music Export (DME) will take the International Festival Forum (IFF) by storm on Wednesday 25 September with its Dutch Impact party.
“Our first participation in the event will be nothing less than legendary, with a killer line-up, unlimited Dutch ‘stroopwafels’ and an open bar,” comments the DME team.
The Netherlands is often seen as the gateway to Europe for touring artists. With a vibrant clubbing circuit, a festival landscape like no other, and a down-to-earth, no-nonsense mentality, the country is considered by many as an all-time favourite for live music.
While promoters like Mojo, ID&T and Friendly Fire are among the top globally when it comes to promoting shows and creating festivals, the Netherlands also has a vast musical landscape with an incredible diverse range of domestic artists throughout all different types of musical genres. Make no mistake: there’s a lot this small country has to offer when it comes to live music and events!
“Our first participation in the event will be nothing less than legendary, with a killer line-up, unlimited Dutch ‘stroopwafels’ and an open bar”
Working with the best Dutch professionals and artists, DME has become a well-respected and trusted household name in the international music industry. For over 15 years, it has been showcasing and supporting the best up-and-coming Dutch artists, which has not been without results. Partly with support from DME, artists like Sevdaliza, Within Temptation, Kovacs and Jacco Gardner have grown to be legendary artists with a world-wide fan base.
For DME’s first participation in IFF, three incredible Dutch artists who are more than ready for the big festival stages will play a showcase at best venue of the IFF evening: the Monarch. Neo-soul legend Jarreau Vandal (Paradigm Agency, pictured), Asian psych-rockers YĪN YĪN (BLiP Agency) and funk indie whirlwind Chef’Special (Filter Music Group) will show you that when it comes to live music, the Dutchies are on top of their game!
Dutch Impact party at IFF will take place on Wednesday 25 September from 9 to 11.30 p.m. at the Monarch in Camden, north London.
Dutch Music Export is powered by Dutch Performing Arts Fund and Buma Cultuur.
IFF 2019 takes place from Tuesday 24 to Thursday 26 September.
Want to promote your business or service with a sponsored news story/banner package? Contact Archie Carmichael by emailing [email protected] for more information.
The fifth edition of the International Festival Forum (IFF) has sold out in advance of the 24 to 26 September event, with 800 delegates attending from 40 markets, 40 agency showcases and a keynote interview with Rock Werchter’s Herman Schueremans.
The invitation-only event for festival bookers and booking agents takes place in Camden, North London. This year’s edition has doubled the amount of networking space around the main venue, Dingwalls, and introduced pop-up agency offices on both days.
“We’ve grown a bit again this year, so have had to pay off a few market stall holders to make room,” says ILMC MD and IFF co-founder Greg Parmley. “Looking back over the last five years we’ve been very lucky – not just with the weather, but fortunate to have had tremendous support from our agency partners, many who’ve backed IFF since year one.”
Partner agencies on IFF include 13 Artists, ATC Live, CAA, ITB, Paradigm, Primary, Solo, WME, UTA and X-ray Touring. Artists confirmed to perform during the various agency showcases include Squid, Sports Team, Life, Happyness, Chinchilla, Niklas Paschburg, Easy Life and multi-platinum-selling rockers the Darkness.
“We’ve grown a bit again this year, so have had to pay off a few market stall holders to make room”
Conference topics at IFF 5 include festival billing, consolidation, competition from new market entrants, gender splits on line-ups, and niche events, while the IFF Keynote interview is Rock Werchter founder and Live Nation Belgium head Herman Schueremans.
With IFF reaching a milestone fifth edition, amongst the various dinners and events is a joint birthday party on Thursday 26 September with European metal festival behemoth Wacken Open Air (30 this year), and Japan’s Summer Sonic (20 this year).
Other new elements at the event include Knowledge and Green Hubs featuring innovative suppliers and sustainability experts, while hosted speed meetings and a delegate portal return for the third year, supported by the Department of International Trade.
Full event information is online at www.iff.rocks.
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