NASHVILLE – The Music Business Association convention got off to a successful start in Nashville this week, with the annual gathering drawing more than 2,100 music industry professionals representing participation from more than 750 companies and more than 30 countries, its president announced Tuesday. trading group, Portia Sabin. (May 14) in her annual State of the Music Biz speech.
In addition, Sabin said that proposals for programming at the conference, which comes from industry executives, saw a 30% increase this year, “reflecting everything our industry wants to discuss — from hot topics like artificial intelligence, gaming and social impact , to perennial favorites like timing, music and money and marketing. And don't worry, we still have the critical but unsexy topics like metadata and neighboring rights.”
With a full court of panels and seminars on many of the industry's challenges and opportunities, Sabin also reported that approximately 325 speakers/panelists are slated to take part in this year's conference. He further noted that the trade group's membership has grown by 106 companies and organizations since last year's gathering, with Deezer, Audiomack, Pirames International, SonoSuite, NMPA (National Music Publishers Association) Louisiana Entertainment (a division of Louisiana Economic Development) and Toronto. The Metropolitan University joins the fold.
Beyond the conference, Sabin said the organization continues to host its Music Biz Roadshow series of events in places like Dallas, Miami and Huntsville, Ala., with programs for local independent musicians that have included topics such as “Technical Solutions to music', 'The State of Independent Distribution' and 'Where's My Money and How Do I Get?' Companies such as Mechanical Licensing Collective, CD Baby, Bandcamp, TropiSounds, Songtrust, Symphonic Distribution, Syntax Creative, Switchchord and Music Audience Exchange participated in these events. “If your company wants to participate in a Roadshow this year, please let my team know – these are some of the most fun and inspiring events we do and we'd love to have you join us,” said Sabin.
In addition to going on the road, the commercial team has also created a new virtual series, Music Biz Passport, which explores a different international market each time. “These events are meant to connect US music business executives with international trendsetters so they can learn what's working and what's not working in these communities and create new partnerships that will ultimately make our industry stronger,” explained Sabin, adding that upcoming events will focus on local music industries in Finland, Latin America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.
On the good works front, Sabin mentioned that Music Biz partnered with the Music Health Alliance to create the MHA Mental Health Fund. Since its inception, supported by a $50,000 contribution from the SCARS Foundation – an organization created by Sully Erna and the band Godsmack to support mental health initiatives – the fund has grown to $355,000 and has served more than 500 of its professionals music industry through 5,246 counseling and psychiatric outpatient visits.
Meanwhile, the organization's scholarship foundation raised $60,000 and awarded 12 scholarships to deserving music business students of $5,000 each, Sabin reported, thanking the scholarship committee for their hard work as well as “Lisa Robinson and Aaron Tochini who went above and beyond.”
Finally, Sabin celebrated another major achievement the trade group achieved during the year: persuading Luminate to abandon its materialized plan to de-weight physical sales data, thereby changing the chart's methodology. After the initial shift to unweighted sales data, Sabin, retail coalitions and other stakeholders teamed up to work with Streetpulse to collect this data from indie stores. After independent music retailers began boycotting Luminate reports, Music Biz worked with the coalitions to negotiate a deal that brought indie store data back into the Luminate system. As a result of this effort, the number of stores reporting to Luminate has more than doubled to 315 stores, from the 140 retailers that previously reported to Luminate prior to the arbitrariness.
“I want to thank everyone who invested and made their voices heard on this issue, from retailers to labels, distributors and individual artists – and of course Rob Jonas and Luminate for coming to the table and being good partners,” said Sabin. . “Those who have been around since the NARM days know that physical retailers are the original heart of the Music Biz and this year's Record Store Day was another off-the-charts success… proving once again that physical is a vital part of our industry .”
Sabin closed by noting that the conference will move to Atlanta next year and will be held May 12-15 at the city's Renaissance Waverly Hotel. “It's a great property located near The Battery and Braves Stadium. and we're especially excited to be able to buy the entire hotel, which means everyone there will be a Music Biz attendee,” he said. “Sounds like sleepaway camp, right?”
