Summary
New image? How do we present the music to those who can market it, etc.?
Participants
- Jim Hiscott, [JH], mod.
- Johnny Dovercourt, a.k.a. Jonathan Bunce [JB], Music Gallery
- Rejean Beaucage [RB], La Scena Musicale, Voire, Circuit
- Paul McNally, [PM] owner of a bookstore McNally Robinson.
- Patrick Carrabré [PC], Winnipeg Symphony
- Michel Levasseur [ML], Festival de Victoriaville
Opening Remarks
Johnny Dovercourt
- We have to make our story more interesting to a wider public without compromising our
artistic integrity and focus on the music.
- Best way to get word out is counting on free ads and previews.
- It's a competitive marketplace: need good photos, timely story, CDs to review, a
hook.
- Work more closely with artist to get a better story to get media attention.
- Connecting obscure artists to more famous name helps.
Rejean Beaucage
- Get involved
- support the media,
- buy ads
- subscribe.
Paul McNally
- measurable goal and success.
- Bay Como policy required: Cdn bookstores must be owned by Canadians. You get
commercial rights to distribute foreign content and obtained full force of copyright.
Distribution network created on the back of already existing demand. This created a
conduit through which these books flowed.
- Difficult to mobilize media and consumers in esoteric field. Solution: be part of a
larger pipeline.
Pat Carrabre
- Use innovative ways to attract new audience: told of the beginning idea of the New
Music Fest.
- Partly we don't know our potential audience. The Brahms audience will never support
us. They don't like the sound. Stats from 10 years ago showed 17% of population are
believers in arts; next level 16% are agnostic, age 25-45, looking for a night out &
not prejudice against Cdn performers, but they want a show and don't want to dress up;
"conditionals" don't want to go out; must be really a big special event; they will dress
up, won't come back; it's their one night out this year.
- The survey is public and anyone can use it as a starting point for their own
demographic analysis. Nobody seems to use it.
Michel Levasseur
- We have to work on the content, the music.
- Problem of the moment is to get the marketing people on line with content of the
festival, rather than gimmicks.
- A lot of people in marketing want to explain the music by other ways using Presidents
of corps, a pop star, etc. I don't think it helps the festival.
- told of Montreal S O being involved initially but they didn't come back.
- Told of the importance of CBC to provide recordings
Group Discussion
PC: problem with rights for audio to go on the net. we have to figure out how to get to
our audience through an internet site.
JB: internet is great promotional tool, but 80% internet now controlled by 20% of
corporations. Internet can help knit local communities better.
Lawrence: The long tail idea a good one. But with CBC, the primary vehicle for the
distribution of what we do is being reduced. We can't say "we can do without it." CBC is
the lifeblood of what we do. We are taking steps to become involved in independent
production. We're all in the community. We must come together to build new models. It's an
"instead of CBC" model. We need to take steps to control our own destiny.
RB: Big difference between Rock etc. is they have no unions, no CBC and they have to
come together.
JB: It's a DIY scene.,
RB: they have to come together
JB: Inde scene now wants to organize to get grants, etc.
