Day 1 at IMS

Yesterday saw the launch of this years International Music Summit (IMS) in Ibiza wherein the movers and the shakers in the electronic music industry descended upon the White Isle to plan the summer ahead and beyond. But what exactly is IMS other than one big party? Well we give you the rundown of yesterdays key moments as they happened-

Here’s day 1 in quotes:

Shelly Finkel hints that SFX will soon announce more acquisitions over the course of the next several weeks and lambasts artists chasing those massive Vegas contracts

“Artists shouldn’t charge the same as Vegas pays. Vegas has huge income streams of hotels, casinos, and food/bev.”

Sankeys Ibiza owner David Vincent controversially claims the era of the underground is over:

“It’s not ‘underground’ if you are promoting and putting posters all over the place.” 

Thoughts? The sentiment of electronic music not having a subversive underground scene seems to have fired alot of you guys up…

Bobe Lefsetz questions the importance of social media going forward. It was the hot topic at IMS only a few years ago as the future of advertising…

“Facebook has become passé. Get a website and Wikipedia”

Ibiza promoter Mark Netto claims that with advancements in technology and accessibilty that it is now us the great public who are the taste makers with artist success being a more democratic process than it’s ever been before.

“The days of clubs dictating who plays where are over, the punters are the ones who dictate along with the DJs.”

Finally the day was rounded off by a fierce debate on royalties in light of the rise of GEMA in Germany to combat copyright infringement and ensure artists get paid. What is the best solution to the problem if there is indeed one? Many seem to think data collection is the way forward.

“Maybe the next gen. of club equipment will digitally inform what music gets played in a venue?” – Dave Payne

Whereas others see other issues as more pressing and the data collection ‘solution’ to be unworkable

“The real issue is that this money is not going to the artists – it gets divided among others. – Ralf Kollman

“There are cost restraints of data collection, you can’t ask every club what songs were played in a given night.” – Mark Lawrence

With a sore head from last nights events courtesy of one, Eats Everything and a busy schedule for today we’re looking forward to round two today so remember – keep it locked with DT to find out all the latest insider goings on the island over the course of the coming week…