The statement from Ghost’s Instagram:

#NEWS

The last few weeks have been entertaining and full of music festivals.  In our business, the busiest times of the year are usually April/May and October/November.  Looking at our schedule for October and November right now, it is going to be a challenge just staying awake all the time I feel.  It felt the same the last little while.  From Uganda I went straight into The Great Escape, launched my company in London and then headed down to Barcelona for Primavera.  I am there now, recovering from what was a terrific festival.  CIMA produced a wonderful networking event there, featuring delegates from seven countries, including Poland and Israel (as well as Canada, Spain and others).  And the bands were terrific too.

It turns out that in Spain, there's a history of city halls and municipalities paying substantial fees for artists to play large open-air free festivals for the public.  I went to one of these once, where Russian Red performed in the main square in Vic, where Mercat de Musica de Vic takes place.  This has been common in Spain for over two decades, friends told me.  City councils and entertainment units became large-scale talent buyers, offering artists significant sums to perform for free to the public.  This was, apparently, the way it was for a while.  Certainly, on the face of it, the public got what they wanted, right?  A free gig.

Well, now that Spain is going through a crisis (and it very much is), this policy of paying artists vast sums of money to perform in these situations is creating unintended consequences.  These fees - supported through taxation and in the end, public money - often subsidised artists to the point where not only their fees were subsidised, but the crowd was as well.  This means tens of thousands of people got used to seeing these acts for free, rather than buying a ticket to see them.  Such intervention, now that it has disappeared, has created a situation where a lot of these acts are now unable to tour profitably, because their crowds had gotten used to seeing them for free.  In essence, the public funding inflated the popularity of an artist, and when they were forced to tour independently, no one was buying tickets. 

In Spain, this is coupled with the rise of VAT on tickets to 21%, up from 8% last year.  In Germany, it is 5%; France is 8%.  So here we are in a situation where staging large scale events using public funding has in turn destabilised a portion of the sector.  Those large-scale free shows still exist, but they are fewer and further between.  And customers of live music in Spain, used to seeing such bills for free, now have to pay for one or two acts a time, with a 21% surcharge.  In essence, the state is recouping the losses it made from staging such events, in theory. 

To me, such foreshadowing is difficult to assess, but it provides a lesson for the future.  What is the impact, not only now but in the future, on all the stakeholders of large scale free festivals?  Has the Hackney Weekend impacted the London (or UK) festival circuit?  Has it impacted London festivals one year on?  Can this be predicted?  All good questions for a sonic futurologist I'm sure.

Hello.  Apologies for the delay.  As I write this, I am sitting at the 'Moet and Chandon' Bar at the Dubai Airport.  I have just flown from Entebbe in Uganda and am awaiting my flight to London.  I also just wrote a terrific blog piece and accidentally left the page, reseting it.  So I'm hoping this one is as good.  Joy.

So why was I in Uganda?  Well, I was attending the Doa Doa Music Conference in Jinja, Uganda.  How did I get there?  Well, I met the head of the event at the Atlantic Music Expo in Cape Verde and we got to talking.  It turns out that in addition to running Doa Doa (and a host of other initiatives), he had a plan to set up an East African Music Export Cooperative, titled Doa Doa Music.  The plan is for the office to represent, in a variety of ways, the music sectors within Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania, as well as Ethiopia.  This is a mammoth task, and I will talk more about it below, but I was immediately keen to hear more.  He then asked if I would be part of the team compiling, researching and developing the strategy for this office.  I said yes and agreed to come to Uganda to join the conference.  The conference was terrific.  It was co-organized by UnConvention and featured a number of talks, workshops and sessions.  I gave a session on 'The Value and Impact of Music Funding' and sat on a session announcing the idea to begin to strategise and develop the export office.  Amazingly, the room was packed (about 70 people) for my talk, all of whom stayed until the end.  The articulate questions and clearly researched attendees was inspiring.  In addition, I have to say that Uganda is a special place.  I absolutely loved it, especially Jinja.  And thanks to the other attendees who welcomed me in even though I was quite late - Steve from Ear to the Ground, Sid from Shambala, Andrew Dubber and others.  They are all still in Uganda drinking, I'm sure.  Thanks to all of them.  

I would like to dedicate this blog to the discussion of music export offices.  Music Export Offices, to me, are a confusing and interesting set of structures.  In the blog I lost, I feel I wrote a really strong analysis of them, which I will try to replicate.  The first thing to remember is that the music export office, as a standalone, singular structure, doesn't exist.  For example, I have worked for the Canadian version of the music export office for a few years, even though Canada has never had a music export office.  Instead, it is an initiative within a series of initiatives coordinated by CIMA, the independent label association.   It is supported by a number of organisations - federal, provincial and private.  Just look at the bottom of a Canadian Blast poster and you'll see the number of organisations involved.  And Canada is one example; not only is each export supported and structured differently - some as industry initiatives, some as state initiatives, some as mixture of the two or some as private initiatives - but also the concept of the music export office, how the industry as a whole (if that can be defined) view export offices is very different.  Some view them as banks, other de-facto A&R structures while others see export offices as promotional tools and others have no clue what it their functions are.  

The definition of a music export, as a whole, has yet to be defined.  This is due to the hybridity of how they are structured and what they do.  And this is made more worse by the newness of the concept of the music export office and global politics.  For example, the first one, France, was established in 1993 and in Spain, another interesting case study, the Catalan government is more active than the Spanish.  As a whole, defining this structure is still in a 'finding its feet' time.  Yet, music export offices and subsequent 'music week' festivals are growing.  Many South American countries are discussing export office structures (some already have them) while in addition to my new project in East Africa, lots of initiatives are ongoing in Europe and Asia as well.  As I was in Uganda, a friend of mine was at Tbilisi Music Week in Georgia.  And I learned that there is a Kenya Music Week as well (for 10 years no doubt) in September, in Nairobi.  The concept, however difficult to define, is expanding organically - and it is interesting.

One must question the role of the national brand in the promotion of music, both to consumers and the business.  In addition, there are places that have been criticised of opening up structures without the proper infrastructure at home to 'bring up' music that can be exported.  And the term 'export' needs fleshing out.  Does exporting from Vancouver to Toronto suffice?  Or Melbourne to Adelaide?  

These are all the questions that I am grappling with while researching such a project.  There are lots of questions to answer and research to embark on, to understand what is feasible and what isn't - and most importantly, what is most needed.  Being in Uganda showed me that domestic infrastructure, respect of copyright and regional opportunities was key to the attendees.  And I'm sure there's dozens of other complex issues that need to be fleshed out as well.  Very cool to be a part of such a project. 

So, what is a music export office?  Is it a better way of injecting state support into popular music?  Does it have anything to do with funding?  Should it?  How should it interact with the business?  What research, educational and business development responsibilities should it have?  Are these questions even answerable?  Food for thought indeed.

So, I would like to end this blog on some housekeeping:

1.  I am in touch with the Dutch promoter loss subsidy fund.  I will be reporting on this.

2.  I'll be profiling some of the people who select what gets funded in Sweden.  Sweden is a terrific example of how to do a lot of things right in this context.

3. I will be at The Great Escape next week.  For the eight readers of this blog, get in touch if you want to meet.  The Momentum Music Fund is being launched.  This is a big deal.  

And unfortunately, some very sad news.

My friend Paul Gourlie passed away yesterday at the age of 37.  He was an agent at The Agency Group in Toronto.  I met him a long time ago when I was managing my friend Kae Sun, through a mutual friend.  He was always kind, forthright and honest in work and great fun on a night out.  We worked together on a few bands, including In Flight Safety and partied many times, the last memorable one being at Nova Scotia Music Week.  He was kind hearted, great fun and a true gent.  I will miss him dearly.  RIP Paul.  Have fun wherever you are brother.