Follow the tastemakers
Personal, ShowcaseOne of the things I have seen when going to the new music landscape is that music lovers are more and more pushed out.
Look on Austin. In the beginning, it was a cheap town to live in with old run down bars where live music was the main ingredient. This attracted many musicians. Suddenly Austin was hip and had a great selection of entertainment. That attracted big companies that sought a cheap place but cool to attract young employees to hire. Suddenly the prices went up and the bars disappeared and with that the musicians. Right now the last phase of this ongoing. I wait and see where the new Austin is going to be.
Right now Austin just becomes a technical mecca with nerds in suits. Okay, more money but it will fast die. These yuppies will soon kill the slogan “keep Austin weird”.
Same I feel around the conferences that are going down. First, it was music lovers they become replaced by startups and tech since it’s more money. But that makes these tastemakers to leave and just leave an empty fair with no soul. I guess what happened to Midem. Just it companies no music and suddenly all people with taste disappeared. SXSW is heading there and I can see several others too. The new game is to follow the tastemakers.
It will be terrible for Austin to loose that vibe and that slogan. But if cities can reinvent themselves completely then the US is the place for that to happen. Not enough emotional or historical baggage as in Europe.
I've got the trick for showcases – show up, say hi, go enjoy some music, and unless you absolutely have to (which you certainly do) talk as little business as possible 🙂
Yes and they are aware of it. Still it goes so fast that it's hard to change. I see the same happens at Midem, not enough tastmakers just strange tech companies still thinking it's cool to be there.
But your approach on behave on festivals is spot on, sure you will do business on all of these, it's just how the tastmakes are moving around. If you are lucky you find a early tastmaker.