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Business News Education & Events The Great Escape 2014 Top Stories
Focus falls on the fan-led music business at The Great Escape tomorrow
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 7 May 2014
The Great Escape kicks off at 10.30am tomorrow in Brighton, with CMU Business Editor Chris Cooke providing an overview of the key developments and stats in the music business year just gone, after which CMU’s Sam Taylor will kick off the first of two half-day insight strands looking at how artists and their business partners can capitalise on the opportunities created by the direct-to-fan relationship.
Building A Fan Business will firstly look at the marketing challenges the fan-centric music industry needs to tackle, and at industry-leading new approaches to fan engagement and artist marketing. That will include insights from Adam Biddle from innovative content creators theAudience. As a little taster, we caught up with Biddle ahead of the session, and you can check out our Q&A interview with him here.
Asked what the music industry could learn from the other entertainment sectors theAudience also works with, Biddle notes: “Music is a unique entity. No one is cooler than a rockstar and image in music is just as important as the music itself. Unfortunately, the music industry is convinced that a strong focus on marketing initiatives, often primarily selling a specific product, serves as engaging social content. Other areas of entertainment are more focussed on building their brand and identity inside social”.
In the afternoon, ‘Building A Fan Business’ will go on to review fan data, direct-to-fan platforms and what role labels have to play in all this, a theme Cooke will then expand on with his keynote speech on Friday morning at 10.30am. Immediately after that the insight strand New Product Strategies will kick off, looking at new products and services artists can look to create to sell to that fully engaged core fanbase.
In the afternoon New Product Strategies will move on to explore the trademark business, before the Music Publishers Association lead an hour looking at product innovations in the lyrics and score domain. It will feature Sarah Hopkins from Music Sales on the sheet music market, consultant Michael Gottlieb on innovative lyric licensing and Bruce New from Sony/ATV on apps based around lyrics and score.
Follow CMU coverage of this year’s Great Escape here.
