Moses Supposes: 19 Music Conferences Ranked

Moses Avalon is one of the nation’s leading music-business consultants and artists’-rights advocates and is the author of a top-selling music business reference, Confessions of a Record Producer. More of his articles can be found at www.mosesavalon.com.

Moses Avalon: 100 Answers to 50 Questions on the Music Business (Hal Leonard, 12/15/10)

With more than 100 music-business conferences in the US alone and most emerging musos on a limited budget, which ones are really worth the investment? The following is an excerpt/sample chapter from the revolutionary new book on music-business survival, 100 Answers to 50 Questions on the Music Business, by industry veteran Moses Avalon. Enjoy.

Maybe for many, the idea of spending thousands of dollars to schlep through airports and hotels for several days, only to end up with a handful of cards/CDs from people in the music business that they will never remember, is dumb. Or maybe it’s worth every dollar and minute that you can spare.

They say that you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince. If you think so, there are a bevy of music-business functions that serve this philosophy. There are medium-grade ones geared towards the college-music scene, like CMJ, as well as high-end ones, like MIDEM, where people with far more dollars than sense fly to the south of France and stay in four-star hotels just to mingle with French lingerie models. (Wait, that’s starting to sound kinda cool.)

Some of these conferences are very useful, but most have become showcases for already-financed acts, not places where true “emerging” artists can get a fair shake — despite what they advertise. The panels often are a disappointment, filled with self-serving pitchmen from unions, PROs, and “indie services,” making it very hard to extract any objective information.

Okay, enough of the dark side. What’s the appeal?

Because the music business is about connections, you need to make as many as you can. Given this reality, I’d say that conferences are a must — as many and as often as you can. But with limited resources, how do you discriminate?

It’s better to go to one high-end conference than several low-end ones. MIDEM first, if you can afford it, then SXSW (South by Southwest). The rest are probably limited in terms of trying to “get a deal.” However, they provide the value of building social equity — a fancy sociology term for acquiring lots of important friends.

For example, the TAXI Road Rally, a low- to medium-grade conference, gets high reviews each year from my spies, who claim that more songwriting teams are formed there than anywhere else on the planet. And MIDEM, the Rolls Royce of conferences, is a great place to find money — if you’ve already got plenty of your own. So it ranks lower.

How to Use the Chart Below

There are three columns in the chart below. The “average cost” column is based on surveys of over 54 music-biz veterans and is an aggregate number that includes admission fees, airfare, hotel, per diem of $75 a day (believe me…you will need $75 just for the meals in the conference venue), and the cost of the materials that one generally needs to bring (press kits, cards, fliers, etc.). If the conference is in a major city, the cost presumes airfare. All presume mid-priced hotels for the amount of days that the conference lasts. Though it is quite possible to save money and attend these conferences on a tighter budget, these numbers provide a good indicator of the budget of a mid-line attendee.

The column called “SEY” stands for “Social Equity Yield.” This is a (1–10) rating based on how much influential juice you can potentially aggregate when compared to the cost of taking off work and flying to the conference. It’s weighted towards the interests of US-based artists (or their managers/producers, etc.) Conferences in Nashville, Los Angeles, and New York fare higher in this system, since you can network outside of the conference hub while in each city.

Anything below a “6” rating is a “good-time” write-off. As you might expect, you tend to get what you pay for in this chart, with some surprising exceptions.

With over 100 music-business conferences in the US and Canada each year, choosing which to attend is a challenge for anyone. Hopefully the chart below will help provide a starting point for making those tough decisions. A more comprehensive chart, along with strategies for how to work these events, is offered in my latest book, 100 Answers to 50 Question on the Music Business. If you are looking for tested methods and techniques to take your music career to the next level, you can pick up a copy at Amazon (fastest and cheapest).

Your comments here are invaluable. Please take a moment to share your opinions about any of the conferences, and let me know if there are any major conferences which were left out that are worthy of being added to this chart.