Author: Press Officer

Music Manager’s Forum Ireland

“LIVE MUSIC, INTERNATIONAL TOURING & MERCHANDISING”

Training Day – Saturday 11th February 2012

@ IMRO Offices, Copyright House, Pembroke Row, Lower Baggot Street, Dublin 2 // 11.30am to 5.00pm

GUEST PANELISTS

Stuart Worthington- MMF Training Officer

Tommy Kinsella – Manager of God Is An Astronaut
Started playing music at age of 10 both guitar and violin. Formed my first band in 1961 , formed the ORANGE MACHINE the only recognised psychedelic Progressive band from Ireland in the 60’s . Leader of country and bluegrass band Cotton Mill Boys in the 70’s .Past 10 years guiding and managing top instrumental band GOD IS AN ASTRONAUT.

Noel McHale – MCD
Senior live booking agent festivals and major events, MCD. McHale is one of the key bookers with MCD some of the leading artists he’s brought to Ireland during his seven year tenure including Pavarotti, Queen, The Killers, Snoop Dogg, P Diddy, The Game and Rihanna. Pre-MCD Noel promoted The Bothy Band and The Boomtown Rats in the West, assisted Ollie Jennings getting the Galway Arts Festival off the ground and establishing the Bulmers comedy festival and its UK counterpart festival.

Gary Monroe – Monroe’s Galway
Promoter and Booking agent for Monroes Galway.

Alan Murray – Mazar’s Ireland
Alan Murray is a tax specialist and a chartered certified account with over 15 years experience with a particular emphasis on clients involved in the entertainment sector. Alan is a senior member of the Mazars OJK Entertainment Division and his clients range from global international high profile entertainers to indigenous performers based primarily in the Irish market place. Alan has experience in advising on the tax issues of all elements of entertainment income streams for performing musicians including recording and publishing royalties and live performance income. He also has particular expertise in dealing with HMRC in terms of agreeing UK withholding tax for live performances in the UK. Through his work in this area Alan has developed leading entertainment contacts in both the UK and US and can offer a global service in this sector.

Benny Taaffe – Vantastival (Music Festival)
Benny is one of the main organisers and founders with his partner, Louise Tangney. They have a combined experience of twenty years in the festival industry, having worked at festivals all over Ireland, the UK and the USA, including Oxegen, Electric Picnic, Glastonbury, Reading and the Burning Man festival in Nevada.

John Weston – Backstreet Merchandising
John started working with Backstreet International Merchandise in London in 2003 as well as managing various bands at the time, most notably a period with Ned’s Atomic Dustbin. He set up Backstreet’s Irish operation on 2008 and now works with bands such as The Coronas, Altan, Horslips, Sharon Shannon, Clannad, Afro Celt Sound System, And So I Watch You From Afar to name a few. Backstreet have offices in London, New York & Dublin; www.bsimerch.com catering for bands full merchandise needs from supply, touring and e-commerce. John serves on the board of the Music Managers Forum Ireland and is one of the founding directors having previously been an active member of the MMF UK.

Fees for this event are as follows:

MMF Members – €20
IMRO Members – €32
Non-Members – €70

MMF Ireland training events are sponsored by and run in conjunction with IMRO.

The Summer of 2011 may be long forgotten but the memories of the best festivals of the year have just been revealed!

More than 19,000 Irish music fans cast their votes in the 100% publicly-voted Irish Festival Awards – and the results are now in with Electric Picnic scooping 7 of the major gongs including ‘Best Large Festival’ and ‘Best Lineup’. The Rubber Bandits were honoured with ‘Best Alternative Act’; : And so I watch you from afar  were voted ‘Best Irish Act’ while Galway Arts Festival won the award for ‘Best Street Spirit’.

“The Irish Festival Awards were set up in 2007 to honour the people behind the scenes that make every Irish Summer such an eclectic celebration of music, art and performance – and well done to Electric Picnic for stealing the show in 2011,” said Awards Director, Cillian Stewart.  “Fans are still in with a chance to win tickets to every winning festival so don’t delay and like the Festival Awards Facebook page to enter now,” he said.

Results for Irish Festival Awards 2011

 Best Large Festival: Electric Picnic

Best Medium Festival: Rory Gallagher Tribute Festival

Best Small Festival: Body & Soul

Greenest Festival: Electric Picnic

Best One Day Festival: Arthur’s Day

Best New Festival: Forbidden Fruit

Best Dance Festival: Life

Best Traditional Festival: Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann

Best Value: Arthur’s Day

Best Street Spirit: Galway Arts Festival

Best Headline Act: The Chemical Brothers

Best Rock Act: Muse

Best Dance Act: Underworld

Best Alternative Act: Rubber Bandits

Best Irish Act: And so I watch you from afar

Best Lineup: Electric Picnic

Family Festival Award: Electric Picnic

Social Responsibility Award: Electric Picnic

Best Service: Electric Picnic

Best Toilets: Electric Picnic

Due to the recent change in our Tours & Residencies submissions policy, which is effective for submissions for our July 2012 distribution, we can no longer accept paper or email submissions for Tours & Residencies.

Circa 90% of live performance submissions received from members for our Tours & Residencies Scheme are now submitted online via the members area of the IMRO website.

By moving to processing online submissions only, we are reducing the administration costs for processing Tours & Residencies submissions from 30% to 10%. Under the same policy change we are increasing the gross payment per venue per night from €15.24 to €20.00. Taking into account the previous administration cost of 30% on a gross payment of €15.24 versus the new administration cost of 10% on a gross payment of €20.00, there should be a noticeable increased net payment to our members for Tours & Residencies.

Therefore we would ask that you submit your Tours & Residencies via the members area of www.imro.ie – we encourage you to regularly submit your live performance details and set lists online. Once a set list has been submitted online, it can be used against any number of gigs. You can also track when your submissions have been processed online.

IMPORTANT

Royalties for Tours & Residencies taking place between July and December 2011 will be paid in our D122 July 2012 distribution. In order for eligible performances to be included in the D122 payment, please submit your July to December 2011 performances online by Wednesday 29th February 2012.

If you have not already done so, please register for online access to the members area of this website, where you will be able to view & update your correspondence details, view statements online, register new works, view your repertoire of registered works and submit live returns to us.

Should you have any questions about logging on & registering as a new user, please contact the IMRO Membership Department at Ph: 01-6614844 or by email at membership@nullimro.ie

The introduction of this change moves us closer to paperless processes and the delivery of associated cost and service benefits to members.

CISAC publishes economic survey of authors’ society royalty collections.

Despite a challenging economic environment, 2010 proved a positive year for creators: Royalty collections hit a high note & climbed 5.5%

MIDEM, Cannes, January 30, 2012 –The annual Global Economic Survey released by CISAC, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers, shows gross royalty collections climbed 5.5% year-on-year. That was a second consecutive year of significant growth, following a 1.7% rise in 2009, with the slight dip seen in 2008 failing to halt the steady climb of collections over the last 7 years—in striking contrast to the performance of other cultural sectors.

“These positive results show the solidity and efficiency of the international network of authors’ societies represented by CISAC,” said the confederation’s Director GeneralOlivier Hinnewinkel.

“Here is proof,” he added, “that collective management is the solution for today and tomorrow, generating wealth for creators while withstanding economic changes and supporting digital music markets.”

———————————————————————

Key figures for global collections in 2010

€7.545 billion—total gross collections from CISAC member societies

+5.5%—worldwide year-on-year growth (in current €).

61% of global collections were generated in Europe(€4.6 bn)

73% of collections were from public performance royalties

86% of collections were accounted for by musical repertoire

+15%—growth for audiovisual repertoire.

———————————————————————

The Survey was based on data provided by CISAC members—232 authors’ societies in 121 countries, representing more than 3 million creators and publishers of all artistic genres.

Mr Hinnewinkel said that, “The growth has been delivered through the hard work of CISAC members who are constantly looking into improving their costs, expanding coverage of their own territories and adapting to the constantly-changing ways their repertoire is used, especially in the digital sector.”

Emphasizing the contribution authors’ rights can make to global economic development, the overall rate of growth for royalty collections during 2010 slightly exceeded that of world GDP (5.1%, according to IMF figures).

That growth came across the globe, with particularly dynamic performances in the Latin America-Caribbean (+21%) and Asia-Pacific (+12%) regions. North America saw growth of 5.7%, although Europe remained somewhat muted, at 2.3%.

The year also saw an unexpected recovery in mechanical reproduction royalties for recorded works, driven by results in North America, Asia and Latin America and by the digital sector.

However, public performance continued to provide the lion’s share of revenues for creators and music publishers, climbing 7.5% to €5.5 billion, or 73% of all revenues. With the advertising market predicting growth through to 2014, those figures are expected to climb further.

With 56% of public performance revenues accounted by broadcasters, radio and television remain the predominant royalty source (39.8% of all collections). Revenues from the phonographic industry accounted for 23.4% of all collections, representing the second major source of royalty collections. But while collections from the digital sector rose 22% in 2010, they have still not offset the decline in royalties from physical sales and remain a very limited source of revenues (1.7% of collections).

Nevertheless, the flow of revenues from the digital sector is set to continue increasing. The growth rates for streaming and downloads were very high, reflecting the expansion of licensing contracts for these two types of music use.

“IFPI recently reported that major international digital music services such as iTunes, Spotify and Deezer are now present in 58 countries,” said Mr Hinnewinkel,“compared to only 23 at the start of 2011. CISAC members are now well placed to develop this market as it expands.”

Grab Radio world

Grab Radio World is an app for music lovers everywhere. The app allows the mobile user to listen to over 40,000 radio stations from all over the globe. The unique thing about Grab Radio is that it enables the user to purchase the songs they love directly from the Apple Store. The app lets people build up all their favourite tunes into a must have playlist. 

Grab Radio Benefits

The listener can browse through five different categories; local radio; talk radio; sports; music genres; and they can also browse by location. The user can add their favourite stations to the favourites list.Grab Radio gives users easy access to free music on YouTube as they can go directly to the song on YouTube as it is playing on the radio by the click of a button. The ‘more’ button also allows users to link up with your favourite artist on Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.

Other features include a built in Shazam feature to identify new music and sleep timer which  fades out gradually allowing the listener to fall asleep to their favourite station.

Future:

Grab Radio is currently available for iPhones, iTouch, iPad and Nokia smartphones. Grab Radio has just gone into partnership with Microsoft to launch the app on the Mango version in early February. Grab Radio World will also be coming soon to Android. 

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUTtVQrioEE

Apple Store: http://itunes.apple.com/ie/app/grab-radio-world/id395293559?mt=8

Ovi Store: http://store.ovi.com/search?q=grab+radio

Website: http://grabradioworld.com/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/GrabRadio

★★★★“…The sheer volume of stations you can access is amazing!” iphoneappcafe.com

Accolades

• Best new business at the Sunday Business Post ‘Out on Your Own’ conference 2009
•  02 App of the week!
• One the few projects to get investment offers on RTE Dragon’s Den* 2010
• Ulster Bank business achievers award finalist 2010
• 2010 Appys ‘Best Media APP’ award finalist
• Nokia North America ‘Calling all innovators’ finalist 2011