SOUND City was a four-day and night live music festival and music business conference.
The idea was essentially to bring entertainment to the masses of Liverpool and to give opportunities for musicians, and music and culture businesses from Liverpool and the wider North West, the chance to play in front of and engage with a music business audience from all over the world.
This year, we brought in over 500 delegates from North America, from all over Europe, and from Japan, who by day debated and discussed issues to do with the music business and then by night went out to devour music in over 36 venues in the city.
The conference element is absolutely vital to what we do at Sound City.
Without that, we’re just another festival. In itself, that is absolutely valid and it’s a great opportunity for people to play, but to us it is of paramount importance that we get business people in front of these bands and businesses.
This year, we did things like Meet The Buyer, where we got North West firms in front of companies from all over the world to begin to do business.
We had executive decision-making people from some of the biggest companies in the world – Google, Sony Playstation, EA Games, Warners and, in fact, all the major record labels and publishing companies.
It’s fantastic to see these people in Liverpool – it’s a great feeling to see it happen here after working on other festivals and conferences for so long.
I used to work at In The City for a number of years, and one of the reasons that Manchester’s industry began to flourish and to build over the last 20 years was because of the people and the opportunities that In The City brought.
We’re going to put Liverpool on the business map for the whole of the industry and make sure we build the industry in Liverpool. We’re going to give it fresh new opportunities and get these people to meet people they wouldn’t otherwise get to meet.
The record industry is undergoing change. Who knows where it’s going to end up? – I don’t think any of us know at the moment.
Spotify is the latest model, for example. Will that be here in 12 months’ time? Maybe that’s one of the hot topics we’ll debate next year at Sound City.
