Industry news & advice blog

So my final day of In The City rolls around. How can it have gone so quickly? I decided to treat myself to a hearty keynote chat with some very highly regarded speakers on the bill including Nick Halkes (who launched one of the UK’s best known independents, XL Recordings and signed The Prodigy way back when), Ben Turner (owner of Graphite Media and one of the founding members of the Ibiza International Music Summit), Caroline Prothero (once responsible for Virgin’s Dance department and now manager of David Guetta), and Jho Oakley (manager of Chase & Status, Pendulum and Sub Focus). So if you hadn’t already guessed this was the In The City Dance Keynote!

You’ll have to forgive me, but with feeling rather weary on the final day, I didn’t take too many notes and mostly attended out of my own personal interest. Call me selfish! It was a really fascinating discussion and it was very interesting to hear about the various management styles employed. Each manager chatted about how they’ve utilised opportunities that have come their way to further their artists’ careers, which some may deem as ‘selling out’.

Particularly enjoyable were the tales of trying the crack the US market with Dance acts, a genre which has always struggled to make an impact across the pond. It seems that the best way of cracking the US of A is to get involved with the music that it loves best, R&B. For David Guetta it has taken working with Black Eyed Peas, Kelly Rowland and Akon to get noticed. As for Chase & Status, they can thank Rihanna for opening them up to an American audience. Let’s hope the American’s introduction to Dance doesn’t stop there.

21st Century Ticketing
Onto something a little bit more business-like, my last panel of In The City was dedicated to ticketing. The realms of ticketing are changing fast. Whilst paper ticketing is still very much in use, it doesn’t look likely to be around for much longer with mobile ticketing rising quickly behind it. Even e-tickets could shortly take a back seat to the mobile counterpart.

The panel ranged from ticketing experts to artist managers, with the latter knowing just how much ticket pricing affects fans, and in turn a band or artist. Ticketing services such as Fatsoma and Handizo can fulfil bands, artists and managers needs by allowing them to allocate a percentage of tickets to dedicated fans for prime seating, or allow the facility to offer discounts to loyal followers. Handizo, in particular, caters to emerging artists by giving them the option to set their own ticket pricing.

Also discussed was the massive scope for the recording industry to work together with ticketing companies to supply bundles for customers, providing fans not only with gig tickets, but some related content such as tracks or merchandise from their favourite artist. With such capacity for huge development, it seems that ticketing is certainly a market to watch, and could prove to be a channel that other areas of the music industry can utilise to their advantage too.

So, that's it...a very informative and valuable 3 days rounds up. Can't wait to see what is in store for In The City next year!

Image Credits:
Magnus Aske Blikeng - In The City Dance keynote

Read In The City - Day 1 summary
Read In The City - Day 2 summary