There is a new music conference/festival in Manchester, UK this year called ‘Beyond the Music’, 11th-14th October. https://beyondthemusic.co.uk/
It seems to be a variation on the Reeperbahn, Eurosonic, Iceland Airwaves, By:Larm etc formula but with a twist because it has a central theme which is “unifying the global music industry to deliver an international strategy for music.”
You wouldn’t think musicians delved too deeply into strategy even if their managers, labels etc are attached to it with an umbilical cord.
But ‘post Covid’ (has it gone away yet?) and with the opportunity for Nordic artists and bands to play in the UK adversely affected by Brexit, strategies are exactly what are needed, and urgently.
I can count on the fingers of two hands the Nordic bands that I know of who have made the effort to come here since restrictions were removed this time last year. We need more.
Beyond the Music say it is “a place to gather artists, entrepreneurs, creatives and music industry professionals over the course of three days with funders, businesses and organisations in order to maximise impact and take solutions to scale whilst putting the spotlight back on live and new music discovery alongside world class artists.”
Those three days include multiple live performances from both established artists and new ones.
As far as I know applications to play are open to anyone.
Launched by way of a concert at music industry conference SXSW a couple of weeks ago, Beyond the Music is an initiative of Oli Wilson, son of the famous impresario and all round mover and shaker Tony Wilson (Factory Records, the Hacienda nightclub etc) and supported by a host of people including the Head of Music for the Manchester International Festival, which also takes place this year, in July.
Potentially the number of music industry people that matter who will attend this event is huge, from Manchester, London and abroad.
If you’d like to play there I’d get an application in pronto if I were you because there will be a lot of interest just from Northwest England. You can do that here: https://forms.monday.com/forms/92905ec6be9e102cae28317d79726a45?r=use1
Please be aware I am not connected to the event, I am posting this as a general news item.
