the blog

#VoteForMusic: the sector speaks – postings from The Great Escape

At a packed session at The Great Escape on 15 May, I took to the festival stage, to announce the results of our #VoteForMusic campaign. Joining me on stage were the musician and dj Dan le Sac, Cooking Vinyl founder and chief executive Martin Goldschmidt, The Great Escape’s Martin Elbourne and Yellowbrick music’s Meredith Cork […]Read More

RE-SET: virtual action learning for artists and creative freelancers

RE:SET is a virtual action learning programme for creative freelancers, artists and other creative entrepreneurs based in England. Designed in response to Covid 19, it brings together peers from across the sector to help each other explore their challenges, opportunities and dilemmas and unlock new insights.Read More

Ten tips to read before starting your music technology business

Do it now and don't keep it to yourself! Two of the 10 brilliant tips you must read before launching your music technology startup. Read More

Show me the money

Show me the money: sources of finance for early stage artists

At last weekend’s Making Money from Music – Early Revenues panel at The Great Escape, hosted by PRS for Music, I promised I would post some links to funders and other sources of finance I mentioned that are potentially relevant to early stage career musicians, so here they are, along with a link to my top 10 […]Read More

Joining the Dots game changing winners announced

Four game changing live music projects have been chosen for Joining the Dots funding and support. A pioneering gig-swap network, opening up a digital music archive, a mobile game for gigs and a location based app for "listening to listings". Read More

the hub’s director Julia Payne offers some fundraising tips

Our recent call for proposals for our Joining the Dots funding resulted in a mountain of applications – over 150 people submitted a short film about their idea. Our panel of assessors had a tough job; pretty much every single one had a really great idea at its heart, yet we could only take 1 […]Read More

How to run an award-winning festival

Record labels signing fewer bands, a closed shop operated by bigger promoters - and a lot of deer. Just some of the issues faced by Kendal Calling festival promotor Andy Smith who tells Karen Pirie how he and others like him are getting through it.Read More

Jen Long

Jen Long on how young music fans are pioneering new ideas in the live music circuit

Presenter of Radio 1′s BBC Introducing, Jen Long, chats to Karen Pirie about the hub’s music funding project Joining the Dots – and the innovations that broke but dedicated young music fans are pioneering.Read More

In search of the musical game-changers of 2014

House gigs, live streaming and hit-predicting software are just some of the changes affecting how we discover, share and make music. But who will be the game-changers of 2014. We ask industry experts to future-gaze and invite YOU to be a music industry game-changer too.Read More

Got a bright ideas for using technology to increase attendance at gigs?

The first of three blogs giving more detail on the three key areas where our Joining the Dots project is looking for inspiring ideas. Starting with 21st century ideas using digital technology to get more people to gigs and spend more when they are there! Read More