Getting a music conference right is never an easy thing. There needs to be a balance between keeping things interesting for both musicians and the industry, a variety of panels to make it worth everyone’s while – as well as being unique for the market – great networking opportunities and, naturally, the showcasing of some amazing music along the way. Oh and a good lunch never does anyone any harm.
Launched as part of ARIA Week in Sydney (click HERE to read my overall thoughts on this initiative), and admittedly thrown together in a matter of months, by Sound Alliance – the folks who bring you InTheMix, FasterLouder etc – the Electronic Music Conference (EMC) was, much to my surprise, a perfect articulation of all the above. Keeping things simple in their first year, the folks behind EMC took on board everything you need to put together a great conference and, especially given the time it took them to put it all together, made it look easy.
The talks were informative, occasionally controversial and always entertaining, the overall focus unique for the Australian market (not to mention timely, with Stereosonic taking place the same week), everything ran on time and their patrons were well looked after with food, drinks and afterparties. Though there is certainly room to grow, they have set the framework for a bright future for the conference and have indeed already begun planning the next event in 2013.
As someone who attends a LOT of these sorts of things a year, internationally, these are not compliments I throw around casually. Without the best of planning, and enough knowledge of the market to know what should be discussed, these sorts of events can quickly become a waste of time and money.
For myself, this was the first time I’ve attended a conference about Electronic Music and was thrilled to be learning more about the respective avenues of the industry from start to finish. At most conferences you’ll get a brief hour discussion on the genre and then they’d move onto something else. This is, in a nutshell, the problem many broader conferences face: they barely get the chance to scratch the surface of anything they cover and end up covering the same things over and over again, from conference to conference. By honing in on Electronic Music and keeping things simple – one venue, two rooms, one afterparty etc. – the conference made itself very much worth ones while to attend, and I doubt anyone would have left disappointed.
Thanks much in part to Stereosonic and the ARIAs happening the same week, the mix of high profile industry and musicians was nothing short of spectacular. The opening interview with Tiësto was fantastic, for one; a great way to kick off the two day event and an often eye opening look at the life of a travelling, successful DJ, who are as much business men as they are electronic superstars. It’s fair to say you’d have to be to get to that level. I was consistently surprised at how articulate the musicians were, even when English was their second language.
The cost of the event – between $395 and $595 – is routine for events like this on a larger scale, and though while would be great value for some who have the money to attend, unfortunately the cost would have ruled out access for most. These sorts of things are an investment though, as they would argue. Nonetheless I would suggest the conference organisers look into ways to reduce the cost of their passes to make it slightly more accessible in these early years, but all this naturally depends on the direction they choose to take the event. Keep on mind the cost of a ticket to SXSW can get up to $1k pretty easily, so the bar here is set pretty high, albeit that event runs for almost two weeks.
So other than the high profile electronic artists, what else did that money get you? Well, it got you plenty of industry heavyweights. People like Big Day Out’s Ken West, who is rarely seen at these sorts of things, came out to say a few words about the nature of dance music at music festivals – and you’ll even get to hear our own interview with the man himself very soon! Almost everyone from Totem OneLove – the guys who put in Stereosonic – made it onto a panel, and there were quite a few faces from Future Entertainment and Fuzzy, who fill up our years with dance oriented events.
Though it may have been touched on in one of the talks I missed, I would have loved to see a conversation happen about the problems venues face when they have unruly bouncers who put them in the media’s eye. Whose responsibility it is to ensure that their bouncers aren’t affecting their clientele? Plenty of venue operators, however, were quick to point the fingers at dogs and the police for scaring away punters, or causing larger issues (one was reminded of the girl who died at Big Day Out when she swallowed a bunch of pills on sight of the dogs and police), but the problems venue’s face with drugs is a larger one than that.
What I was happy to see was the constant referral to “the few dickheads that ruin the fun for the rest of us”. And I think there is ultimately no truer sentiment than this. All it takes is one unruly festival, a couple of unruly punters or a douche of a bouncer and you have new restrictions in place that make it difficult for venues to operate and for the lawful among us to have a good time (although that’s a relative argument in its own right). As one venue owner pointed out – he operates a venue that caters to a clientele of 25+ year olds, doesn’t even open its doors until after 3am, and he has yet to report a single incident at his venue. Though his 24 hour license would probably suggest that this fact is acknowledged by the liquor bodies.
There was also a lot of talk about the international market, too – David Boyle of EMI (the “VP of Insights, Worldwide) gave one of the more technical talks of the conference and showed how the habits of the music industry are changing amongst the youngest, and this is seeing the genre grow in huge numbers in America, and to a lesser extent in Australia. There was plenty of talk on the term “EDM” – as John Curtin politely put it: EDM IS EFLYERS! Point to Mr. Curtin. Trance was referenced as a growth market, too, but in all this talk one thing was made clear: electronic music, rise or fall, is here to stay, and so here’s hoping the conference is too.
The final part of a good conference, in addition to good food (there was plenty of it), is a good showcase, and there certainly were some great opportunities for both emerging and established artists to play to the conference crowd. On the second night, the latter made way for a huge party at the Ivy Pool (which Elke will be covering in a separate article), while on the first night is was the emerging artists chance to shine, with a special alcohol fuelled event at the brand new nightclub Marquee at The Star.
The night featured six emerging artists who each played fifteen minute showcases. The first, Lancelot, churned out some typical remixes with keyboards and plenty of gadgets to put together a very enjoyable set. The Kite String Tangle, aka Danny Harley from Brisbane’s Pigeon, meanwhile, reminded me a bit of Sydney duo Fishing – vocal distortions set over broad, hypnotising electronic landscapes and unique samples. Oh and there was a Flume remix thrown in for good measure. It should be mentioned that Flume was mentioned every few minutes or so at the conference as the example of the “Aussie kid that could!”. Big Dumb Kid, followed, and brought us some improvised hip hop while he DJ’d. These three acts showed just how varied this “EDM” industry is, and proved how much quality exists in our local markets Unfortunately I had to make tracks to the triple j party before I saw the other three artists, but heard nothing but great things.
Should the ARIA week continue, the EMC looks set to be a phenomenal fixture amongst the wider array of showcases and industry events. But either way the future looks bright for this Australian run Electronic Music Conference. Congratulations to the event organisers, we at the AU review are very much looking forward to seeing how things progress in 2013…
