Chiara Michieletto Sanchez-Pedreño CE Outcome Paper 1 Contents Page Midem Artist Accelerator Program………………………….3 Mission…………………………………………....…………...8 Tasks and Outcomes…....…………………………………...9 ​ Task 1: Benchmarking Accelerator Landscape.…………………….....9 Task 2: Sourcing of Artists……....…………………………..………..12 Task 3: Reviewing and Selecting talent………………………..………13 Task 4: The Event………………………………......……………………14 Conclusion…………………….……………………………..16 Appendices…………………………….…………………….18 Bibliography………………………………………………….27 2 Midem Artist Accelerator Program Introduction My participation to the Midem Artist Accelerator program was a unique and interesting opportunity, that has helped me develop various skills and acquire knowledge that took me one step closer to realising my future professional career goals. I decided to apply to this internship position as, coming into the GEMB one of my goals was to develop more my skills on the A&R and Live sides. The Midem Artist Accelerator Program allowed me to develop both. I managed to gain A&R skills by participating in the selection of 11 artists out of a pool of over 600 and developed my Live organisational skills by getting insight into how such a big event is organised and carried out. The Program In 2015 Midem launched the 1st Business career booster for emerging artists called the Midem Artist Accelerator Program, designed to support managers, publishers, agents and labels as they look to grow their artists’ profiles globally. It is a unique opportunity for​ 11 ​upcoming international talents to be selected, recognised and mentored by an elite Artistic committee composed of top-notch industry players; as well as play live at Midem and benefit from curated networking, learning and coaching sessions offered by leaders of the international music industry. This program has been awarded the Reed Midem “Innovation Award” in 2015. This year we had 622 submissions coming from every continent. Only 11 were finally chosen. 3 The Artistic Committee was composed by top notch industry players and two high-profile ambassadors: Daddy Yankee and Wyclef Jean. The Accelerator Program consisted of varying activities, workshops and mentoring sessions. Workshop Topics for this year “​How to best position your music for sync and brand partnerships” ​and ​“How to optimise your musical production”​, in collaboration with Metropolis Studios. “Stage Design and Production -- How to optimise your show” ​in collaboration with Live Nation 4 ​“Digital Strategy and Social Media Management” ​in collaboration with Red Essential “Smart Touring Panel -- How to break the US market”​ in collaboration with Epic Proportion Tour We then carried out Meetings and Networking sessions, where I had been tasked with coordinating timetables and schedules for this. Purpose The reason why I chose to apply to this program for my CE project, started with me wanting to develop my critical A&R skills, as my career objective was to work in that department for a record label. I also wanted to experience and learn what goes into the organisation of such a high level program and hoped to be able to meet and network with high profile industry people and musicians. Offerings The main assets I brought to the accelerator program had to do primarily with my music knowledge and event organisational skills. With a fellow Berklee student I had co-founded Sofar Sounds Valencia for which we organised one concert every month during our stay in Valencia. We had to select and reach out to artists and organise and coordinate each event, liaise with venues and carry out all the marketing. This previous experience had given me small scale level tools to build upon during the Midem Artist Accelerator Program, as well as a highly curated and exclusive network of contacts all around the world, through the Sofar Sounds community. 5 Demand from the client/Objectives Extract from the application form: Position Department: ​Entertainment​ ​Service: Midem Live Music ​Midem Live Music Director: ​Delphine Grospiron Job description The student will be fully integrated in the Midem Live team and will play an active role in the 1st business career booster for emerging talent powered by Midem.​ ​ Put yourself in the shoes of an A&R, programmer or project manager and learn how to detect and support the tomorrow's stars. The client was in need of organizational support for the particular program in case. The Midem Artist Accelerator Program brings together musicians and bands and allows them to have one to one sessions, participate to workshops and seminars with key music industry players. The program, being carried out by Delphine Grospiron herself, needed extra organization and coordination support, which was my main task during the course of this externship. Attendance to the conference was also required and needed. During the event I was to liaise with artists, be in charge of timetables and schedules getting respected and followed, generally coordinate and make sure everyone was at the right place at the right time. 6 There was a part of research in the project as well, where it was needed to carry out some competitive analysis of other similar conferences and programs in order to position and assess the validity of Midem’s and in order to acquire more ideas, inspiration and generally benchmark with other conferences. In addition, the up and coming musical landscape had to be evaluated, all the emerging acts from many other conferences and shows had to be put under scrutiny and examination in order to assess and in some cases eventually pursue the possible fit these artists may have with the accelerator program. In fact, one of the ones we decided to contact ​Be Charlotte actually made it to the finalists’ list. Schedule As shown in my proposal, this was an initial division of tasks with deadlines and duration. I managed to abide to this chart well, completing all the tasks within the planned required time frame. The tasks that required the most time and effort were the selection of the most promising projects, the review of the submissions and sourcing of new 7 talent, where I had to build a roster and contact sheet and review various lineups from similar type of events. At Midem, my schedule required me to be at every event of the accelerator program. Schedule can be seen in Appendix 1. Mission Accelerator Team The team this year was composed centrally of Delphine Grospiron who is the Midem Live Music Director and project manager of the Midem Artist Accelerator Program. We also had another member in the team, Cyril Bahsief who works for a festival/touring company called Projet Öctopus. Coordinating with the team was definitely a challenge as it worked at a distance. However, we kept in regular contact by email and had some Skype meetings for important tasks and updates. Job Position My job position was mostly about supporting the main tasks that the whole team was carrying out collectively. We all put our input in our choices and reviews of the artists and provided organisational support at the event. 8 Tasks and Outcomes Task 1: Benchmarking Accelerator Landscape Expectation As part of my initial tasks working for the Midem Artist Accelerator Program, I had to conduct some benchmarking research where I had to look and analyse competitors of the Artist Accelerator Program. I was putting under examination 3 projects that had to be similar to ours, so accelerator programs, music academies, competitions etc. The areas of content these had to cover or relate to were creative industries and entertainment (film, design, fashion, sport) with some possible relation to tech and digital. At least one of them had to be related to the music industry. Deliverables For this task I gave in a powerpoint presentation to Delphine describing briefly the three projects that I was putting under examination and the takeaways we could conclude from this research and potentially implement for next years’ Accelerator Program. Description of Work Research The project I covered were: SXSW Pitch Event At this event companies would go and pitch and have a Q&A with a panel of judges. This year there were 50 interactive technology companies from 10 different categories. Past SXSW Accelerator Pitch Event finalists from 2009 to 2016 achieved the following: 9 •353 companies = 71% funding •14% were acquired •Total through 2016= $3.10 billion Does not include certain undisclosed funding. This data is as of June 1, 2016.1 This event seemed to be perhaps more fit for comparison with the Midem Lab rather than the Accelerator Program. However I included it in my research because I thought that there were some marketing aspects of it that could be taken as inspiration for our program. In fact, I thought that mentioning the success of past winners of the program was a great idea for the Midem Accelerator Program, successes of previous editions’ winners should be more advertised and shared. Sprockit Sprockit showcases today’s media and entertainment entrepreneurs to the industry’s iconic companies. They showcase at the NABshow, the world’s largest media and entertainment event. Again, it is an accelerator program but for startups in the entertainment industry, they also advertise and emphasize the successes of their “alumni”. 2 1 2 https://www.sxsw.com/awards/sxsw-accelerator/ http://sprockitglory.com/ 10 The World Music Expo The WOMEX Showcase, Conference and Film program is created based on an annual call for proposals inviting artists, speakers and filmmakers to apply to take part. There are four categories: Showcases: ​apply to play at showcases in front of international bookers labels etc. DJ-cases:​ womex DJ summit organises club nights, proposals are examined to perform at these. Films: ​present new releases on a platform to connect them directly to the world music community. Conferences:​ to speak/present at the conferences. 3 Conclusion I have not been able to find an accelerator program tailored to musicians that does the same we do. However, the main ideas we can take and I think would be useful to apply to the MAA are: We should be advertising the success of past winners of the MAA, after they attended the MAA. What doors did that open for them? What did they learn? What benefits did they get from it? We could, as the MAA grows, divide it into different genres/events like they do at Womex. I have received a lot of questions on whether electronic music/DJs are accepted in the program, for some reason that is not very clear. Perhaps there could be a section of the MAA that focuses on electronic music and its development and organise a club night where they can perform. 3 https://www.womex.com/ 11 Challenges The main challenge of this task was finding an actual suitable comparison to the Midem Accelerator Program. In the startup world there are similar conference events and labs, but not related to music and to the development of musicians in the same way the MAA does. Task 2: Sourcing of Artists Expectation To start with, the first piece of this task was to use all my personal and professional contacts to help relay the message of the Accelerator program, for example to the Sofar Sounds roster. I sent an email to all the organizers of Sofar Sounds around the world (354 cities around the world), who then in turn passed on the message to artists they were in contact with. Secondly, I had the task of detecting and attracting the most ready to export projects as possible. Description of Work I went through the lineups of many of the biggest festival/conferences in Europe and the US, listening to and researching most of their artists. These were: Reeperbahn, SXSW, Eurosonic and The Great Escape. I also looked at other sources of up and coming artists’ names such as: Sofar Sounds Best Videos on YouTube, The Guardian, Stereogum and Pidgeons and Planes. I finalised a list of 108 potential artists to contact. I then also investigated a list of 14 companies (booking agencies, management companies, record labels etc.) I then contacted all of them, sending more than 175 emails to booking agents, labels managers etc. 12 We received quite a few submissions resulting from this task, one of them, ​Be Charlotte even made it in the final list of artists. Task 3: Reviewing and Selecting Talent Expectation This task was the main one of this externship. We reviewed 622 submissions. This included researching the bands socials, reading through their application and listening to their music. Description of work For this task, Delphine, Cyril and I each would have a google sheet where we would rate artists based on their social media presence and popularity, online buzz, exportability and just plainly whether we liked the music or not. We created a shortlist on Excel and subsequently a powerpoint presentation (see Appendix 2) for the Artistic Committee to judge and choose the final list of artists that were going to make it in the program. We created here artists sheets that included a brief description of the artist, links to socials and music, a live video and a music video. This particular task was overall very time consuming but also one of the most enjoyable ones of this job. There were so many different styles and genres, also, I feel that thanks to this part of the externship I have been able to develop my critical sense and judgement of artists and their music. I now know what factors are important for record labels in the selection of their artists and what type of KPIs are used to measure success in the music industry. 13 Task 4: The Event Preparation before the event Before the event the main task included creating a planner for artists and members of the accelerator program, which included descriptions and profiles of the people attending as well as a summary of the workshops and other sessions etc. For extract, see Appendix 3. The event was supposed to be from the 6th to the 9th of June, however in order to prepare for it thoroughly I arrived on the 5th of June. Expectation At the event I expected to be busy, however I did expect less responsibilities than those that were actually given to me, which helped make this experience even greater. Description of the work I was put in charge of all artist liaison, which entailed reminding, taking and making sure that all artists were where they were supposed to be at all times. I was given a phone by Midem that I would use to send a text message to their managers 10-15 minutes before each scheduled event, panel or workshop, organised meeting points and would take them where they needed to be. I was also given the task of organising all tickets for the Midem by Night festival. This entailed me managing the person at the desk at tourist office, letting her know where she needed to be and when and providing her with the list of invitees/guests for each night. I compiled this list by receiving various requests from artists and Midem staff. I was also put in charge of all social media accounts for the Midem festival. I would post a general post first thing in the morning and then throughout the day would prepare 14 individual posts for each artist with specific artwork for each. At the end of the program on the last day, the 9th of June, I participated to a feedback session for which I made sure the feedback from the artists was recorded. Challenges The main challenge I faced during the event was definitely keeping track of where each artist was all the time, as many of them had scheduled individual meetings and radio interviews, so many of them had to miss many of the sessions. Some artists like ​Acid Arab ​even arrived only on the last days, and ​Shakka ​for example left one day before he was supposed to. Keeping track of all of them (11 of them and their teams) was definitely challenging, but I compiled a schedule with all this information and managed to organise myself to know where all of them were at every moment. Another challenge was definitely creating the schedule for the one to one sessions. I had to match the schedules of each of the mentors of the committee to each of the artists’ and up to the last minute there were some unexpected changes. Conclusion of Event All in all the part I enjoyed the most of this internship was definitely the live event. The artists and their teams were all lovely and it was great to work with the Midem team, all of whom were incredibly nice and helpful. There was a lot of running around and quite a few stressful moments but the adrenaline kept me going and with a little bit of planning and organisation the challenges could definitely be attenuated. The concerts were also all amazing, it was a great opportunity to have been part of such a wonderful event. 15 Conclusion The whole experience at my Internship at Midem was enriching. I enjoyed very much both the active part at the actual event as well as my participation in the selection and organisation process beforehand. I definitely feel that I have developed my A&R skills, something I wanted to acquire from this position, and one of the reasons why I decided to apply to it in the first place. I not only managed to develop skills but also feel that I made valuable contacts with artists and their teams, something I will try to leverage and use in the future, and am already using at my current job at Music Ally. I believe it also had a significant impact on my recruitment, as first of all, the skills I acquired in terms of organisational skills are being put to use almost everyday at my new job, but also because working for such an institution in the music industry like Midem is definitely something respected and sought out for in a potential job candidate. It definitely made an impact in my application and enriched my overall profile to my now employers. My final thoughts on the whole internship experience is that in terms of organisation and communication there were no problems, and I definitely benefitted arriving one day early at the conference so I could be briefed on all that was going to happen. My only strategic insight and advice I could give to Midem Festival in order to potentially generate more revenue from the activity is to charge a small symbolic price for tickets to the Midem by Night shows for the public. The tickets were being requested in very large amounts and I believe it is the part that many people enjoyed the most out of the whole 16 Midem experience. I believe the public would definitely be willing to pay a small amount of money in order to attend the concert, especially since the venue and the lineups were particularly great. Finally, I believe there should be more concerts organised by Midem, and more emphasis should be given to the live part, taking inspiration from other conferences/festivals (eg. Great Escape, Sonar, Primavera Sound etc.) where the live part of the conference is one of the big sources of revenue and brand awareness. 17 Appendices Appendix 1 18 Appendix 2 19 Appendix 3 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 Bibliography ​ Eurosonic:​ ​https://www.eurosonic-noorderslag.nl/en/festival/line-up-archive/ Midem Artist Accelerator program: http://www.midem.com/conferences-events/artist-accelerator/ Reeperbahn artists: https://www.reeperbahnfestival.com/en/festival/programme South by Southwest: http://schedule.sxsw.com/2017/artists South by Southwest Pitch event: https://www.sxsw.com/awards/sxsw-accelerator/ Sprockit: ​http://sprockitglory.com/ The Great Escape: http://greatescapefestival.com/line-up/ WOMEX: https://www.womex.com/ 27