Today marked the first day of the 10th annual All That Matters conference in Singapore – a three day event which takes over the Ritz Carlton for talks on Music, Video, Sponsorship, Sync and Live Events. The first day kicked off with special panels highlighting the music industries in India, Indonesia, Australia (pictured above) and Taiwan. A common thread sat amongst many of the talks throughout the day was that of collaboration and partnerships being integral in industry success.
In the early panels, it was fascinating to discover how fragmented the Indonesian scene was, with popular bands in Eastern Java often unheard of in Western Java; different fans and different genres operating to varying success in each region. And this isn’t just about the bands within the region – but international acts too. Some territories, like Malaysia, have little – if no – pull in the country.
The Australian Panel at Music Matters 2015
During the Australian panel, Chugg Music’s Andrew Stone talked about the Sheppard success story and the idea of building in the market. He highlighted the importance of collaborating with global companies (e.g. labels) which allowed them to push the band’s success overseas, and gave them a story to tell back home in Australia. It’s that idea of building in the market which all the panelists were in agreement on. Frontier Touring’s Michael Harrison looked at an artist like James Bay, who played to 300 cap rooms last year, and will return later this year to play for some as-yet-to-be-announced headline shows, to potentially as many as 5,000 people.
Being able to tell that story of development to media is important. Ed Sheeran (a popular talking point of the day) was another internationally cited example, having gone from playing to some 60 people when he first came to Australia (we were there!), to now selling hundreds of thousands of tickets. And as for how great Australia is, well, Harrison had us covered, “We’re in the midst of Australia taking over the world, and BIGSOUND is a big part of that”.
The Taiwan Country Focus Panel at Music Matters 2015
The Taiwan panel followed and delivered fascinating insight into one of the world’s most unique markets. Though they only hold 2% of the overall Chinese population, they represent 50% of its music market. The domestic market is strong indeed, with people buying music and attending concerts regularly – of both domestic, Japanese, Korean and Western artists. One panelist remarked, “maybe it’s something to do with having been a colony”. They also cited Taiwan as the home for many major technological breakthroughs in the industry, such as the performing hologram.
After lunch, we were introduced to Live! Matters, a new addition to the All That Matters event, which joins Sync and Video as debut segments of the event this year. They in effect replace the Digital Matters component of the event, which will now be a separate event at the end of the year.
The afternoon kicked off with a beautiful acoustic performance from Bastian Baker of Switzerland.
CEO of Branded – the team that present All That Matters as well as the YouTube FanFest, which will return to Singapore this weekend – Jasper Donat started off the Live! conference by looking back at the ten years of the event and the success of the FanFest, now paramount in the international activities of the company. He discussed collaborating with YouTube for FanFest and how the success of the events even surprised them…
Melissa Carbone (pictured below) was our first Live! Matters speaker, talking about her company Ten Thirty One Productions, who create horror based events around the USA. To get the audience in the mood, she immersed them in the “live horror experience” by providing masks for everyone to wear, following a video which provided insight into her company. Essentially, their goal is “to suspend disbelief”. She pointed to the infamous Burning Man festival as laying the groundwork for start ups like hers. And once again, collaboration was a key part of her discussion, stating, “the world is made up of collaborations. What we learn from those collaborations dictates where we go.”
Next, Andree Verleger discussed intelligent show creation and playing with “picture magic” (e.g. projection technology) for his business ABC Event Production, looking at some of their biggest success stories, including the 2008 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremony, where he worked as creative director, implementing those amazing projections that were part of the live presentation.
Upstairs at Sync Matters, we met Disney Interactive’s Gwen Bethel Riley, who talked about how they bring music into their video games, citing that only 20% of the music they use comes from outside Disney’s existing repertoire. And even that content is usually reworked to match their brand through an internal composer. Along the way, however, they have collaborated with brands like Konami and Square Enix to produce content and create unique music from Japan, part of the Asian market worth some $37 billion a year.
Back at Live! Matters, representatives of AIA and MDME were on hand to discuss the collaboration and partnership that helped bring the AIA Great European Carnival to life. And again it was clear that collaboration is what makes this industry go round…
Closing out the day was a keynote interview between Ralph Simon and Jay Marciano, COO from AEG Live. Surprisingly, little was discussed about partnerships and collaborations here, despite AEG consistently working with governments and companies around the world to make their enterprises (e.g. world domination) happen. He pointed to AEG’s blueprint of buying what he called “distressed property”, building a brand new, state of the art arena – such as the O2 in London and the Staples Centre in Los Angeles – and then creating an entertainment district around it. Both were in areas that were dead real estate, and are now vibrant, bustling cultural hubs in each city.
Marciano also pointed to the importance of staying power in building a successful brand in the music business. Now one of the healthiest festivals in the world, Coachella was a loss making enterprise by Golden Voice – who are owned by AEG – for 7 out of the first 10 years. Now it sells some 600,000 tickets over two weekends each year.
And overall his message for Asia was a positive one. It’s a growing market, which will soon account for some 15% of the gross revenue for an internationally touring artist. As little as ten years ago it accounted for almost nothing. As it was pointed out in the Australian panel earlier in the day, what’s imperative for an artist, especially early on in their career, is that they have to be willing to work the territory, potentially tour at a loss at the start (due to lower ticket prices, higher costs of bringing the show over etc.), to make a mark in the region and have that “staying power” that is all too important. Just make sure you’re collaborating with the right people along the way…
Stay tuned for more exclusive Australian coverage of the All That Matters conference here in Singapore. The AU is proud to be the Australian media partners of the event. Photos by Johnny Au.
