Guest blog by @whiskas9
On Friday 4th May, the day before the City gets taken over by hoards of bands and their followers for the annual Live At Leeds festival, The Unconference occurs to provide support for the wave of musicians that will follow.
The Unconference is a forum and platform for music networking and information sharing – a chance to bring some experts of industry close to the sometime sheltered talents that inhabit the city, as well as simply bringing the latter group together. So often we hear cries of: ‘How do we do / get [insert here]’ – the aim of The Unconference is to provide a forum for asking these questions (and any others – the agenda is set by you) and to introduce people who can help provide the answers.
This year is the third year The Unconference has run, a partnership between Futuresound (Live At Leeds promoters), Leeds Metropolitan University, myself and this year assisted by Plugged In Yorkshire – Yorkshire’s Music Industry Development Body. The past two years, we’ve hosted panels on the future of music in the digital age, production techniques, the live music scene, and DIY music distribution.
This year our focus is on the role of digital platforms in the distribution, marketing and promotion of your music – but with a large slice of time given over for networking with our guests. There will be two panels disccusing the above, before we break the audience up in to groups for the experts to spread themselves amongst and deliver one to one advice.
To increase interaction, we’re aiming to welcome everyone to The Unconference individually – and by that I mean, register their needs and ambitions for the day, and introduce them to whoever might be relevant to them as much as possible. Everyone will have their photo taken and be displayed on our Welcome Board, so everyone – panelists, experts and attendees can be easily identified.
We’re lucky enough to have Tom Robinson from BBC Introducing / 6 Music coming to open the event, as well Sean Adams from Drowned In Sound returning to host our digital panels. As well as this, we have a selection of advice from the frontline – music publishers, digital marketing managers, artist managers, PR’s, digital PR’s, journalists, bloggers, agents, lawyers and more! From throughout the UK and from within the city itself.
It is important that The Unconference is free and open to all, and with the support of Leeds Metropolitan University we are able to make it so – all you need to do is register to attend via email at unconference@liveatleeds.com.
The event this year will run from 11am – 6pm at Munro House, centre of the newly emerging Arts Quarter in Leeds City Centre. We are also pleased to announce that Bakery 164 will be creating in our space, in addition to their café on the ground floor.
The Unconference 2012
11am – 6pm
Munro House, Duke St, LS9 8AG
http://www.liveatleeds.com
http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/aet
http://www.pluggedinyorkshire.com
http://www.imgntn.co.uk
written by @whiskas9 – over the last 10 years in Leeds whiskas has been a live music promoter, producer, musician and record label founder – most notably with ¡Forward, Russia! and Dance To The Radio. He now lectures at Leeds Metropolitan University and runs the grassroots music enterprise & industry consultancy IMGNTN