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One week to go until CMU Insights at The Great Escape: Three conferences and some extras too

By Chris Cooke | Published on Wednesday 9 May 2018

This time next week the Great Escape Convention will be up and running with the first of the CMU Insights conferences. Full schedules for each of the three conferences are now online, plus today we reveal information about three other CMU sessions also taking place as part of the wider TGE Convention programme.

The convention side of TGE kicks off a day earlier this year – on Wednesday 16 May – with The Education Conference. Presented by Urban Development and BIMM, as well CMU Insights, this full-day conference will explore and debate the crisis in music education, with the aim of bringing educators and employers together to discuss practical solutions. The day will also inform ‘Redefining Music Education’, the major new research project being undertaken by CMU Insights, Urban Development and BIMM in the next year.

The other two CMU Insights conferences are The AI Conference on Thursday 17 May and The China Conference, presented in association with BPI, on Friday 18 May. We’ve just confirmed details of the artist element of the latter, which will see British-based musician Mira Calix talk about her recent experiences making music in China, and Chinese artist Leah Doh and her manager Caralinda Booth discussing touring and performing in the UK and Europe. They will join numerous other experts to provide a multi-layered guide to the rapidly expanding Chinese music market.

In addition to the conferences, CMU is also presenting three other sessions at The Great Escape this year. On the Thursday at 4.15pm in Dukes at Komedia, CMU MD and Business Editor will be in conversation with Kobalt founder and CEO Willard Ahdritz. He will discuss how Kobalt has sought to revolutionise the management and monetisation of music rights, the impact that has had on the wider music publishing sector, and how he sees the company’s AWAL venture changing the business of recorded music.

On Friday at 4.30pm, CMU Insights will pop up in AIM House, which opens its doors at TGE for the first time this year. CMU’s Chris Cooke and Association Of Independent Music CEO Paul Pacifico will unveil a major new research project that CMU Insights and AIM are undertaking which will map the digital music supply chain for the first time. They present a new guide to music distribution that explains the different kinds of delivery partners labels can now work with, as well as outlining the wider research programme.

And finally on Saturday at 4.30pm in The Old Courtroom, CMU will once again close the convention for another year with Heroes & Villains, where four industry veterans discuss the highs and lows of their careers to date, and the heroes and villains they met along the way. This year is a special edition of Heroes & Villains that will celebrate the fact that CMU will be 20 years old in the middle of this year’s TGE. All the panellists will be people who supported CMU in its earliest days: Pat Carr from Remote Control, Sumit Bothra from ATC Management and broadcaster Edward Adoo. CMU co-founder and MD Chris Cooke will also take part and, as always, journalist and talent scout Stephen Jones will host.

As if that wasn’t enough to be getting on with, Setlist – the music business podcast from CMU – will also be in attendance, recording interviews with key panellists in Dukes at Komedia screen two on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons. CMU Editor Andy Malt will lead the proceedings. The interviews will be podcast later in the year, but you can watch them live and ask your own questions on the day.

For more information on all this activity, check the CMU Insights website here. To access all of this, you need a TGE delegate or convention pass, which are available here. Standalone tickets are also available for The Education Conference on Wednesday 16 May, and those are available here.