Berlin Music Week is now officially over and we can get back to going to gigs and listening to music and pondering how to make a living from it like we did before BMW came to town.
And was it all worth it? From all the innovative ideas banded about, from all the contacts made and business cards swapped, from all the showcases played to handfuls of industry people….actually yes, I think it was worth it.
If you’re hooked up to our weekly newsletter you would have read me writing somewhat cynically about the opening party – loads of money being spent by all the sponsors, which probably came at least in part from the city of Berlin’s not-exactly-overflowing coffers, all the people there to see and be seen, all the back-slapping, being it of one’s own back or someone else’s, and all while there didn’t seem to be a musician anywhere in the place…but I also know that the place was full of people who loved music, and the music world, and all the things that go with it. Or some of them at least.
And it was filled with people who are generally optimistic about the future of the music business, and who are not leaving the business to go and do something else with their lives, like becoming accountants or running car hire firms, but are determined to stay in the music business and make it work.
And there were all sorts of different ideas and approaches and suggestions and presentations of new technology about how we can improve things. So on that score, hats off to the Berlin Music Week, and long may she sail.
So there. That’s me not being mean about the traditional music business. I still have bones to pick of course, and pick them I will, but I wanted
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That was the Berlin Music Week that was
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