Posts in Events
MEGAPHONO 2019 Recap

MEGAPHONO is an annual industry conference and showcasing festival run in February (on purpose) by Jon Bartlett and Rachel Weldon, the leads behind a local-music-industry-management-company-turned-non-profit Kelp Music / MEGAPHONO.

This year was its fifth edition. The festival / conference's year-one launch was planned to coincide with the public launch of / respond to one of the needs identified in the Connecting Ottawa Music Report, a research effort that spearheaded all the industry development work that followed. The City of Ottawa worked with Kelp as one of the local private-sector leads in putting together that report so Kelp Music / MEGAPHONO has a special place in the context of all of the work that’s been done to get the industry moving in Ottawa.

This year we focussed our collaboration on the role of media in music ecosystems. With the way that corporate consolidation in the media industry has affected the coverage of local culture - decimating local arts + culture weekly publications and arts sections of major newspapers - and new provincial legislation in Ontario that looks to threaten how campus-based community radio stations are funded - one of the few places where this kind of coverage lives - the public circulatory system of cultural information is under threat. This affects both how local audiences engage with the music scene and how out-of-town audiences discover it.

In response to this challenge the City of Ottawa funded a part of the MEGAPHONO media delegation, consisting of journalists and leaders inside of international media organisations. By bringing together representatives and individuals who represent different roles across local and international media we wanted to facilitated a conversation about what the challenges are out there, who’s getting it right and how. In addition to the panel we brought our local media orgs together with MEGAPHONO’s full media delegation for a more prolonged and collegial lunch + learn session about what is happening out there in the media landscape and what our organisations can learn from successful media organisations like KCRW, Exclaim! and others to be sustainable and thrive . 

LINK TO COMMUNITY MEDIA: Growing a local media outlet into an international brand PANEL

The Mastering of a Music City - Music Cities Summit: May 11, 2019

The 4th annual Mastering of a Music City - Music Cities Summit, presented by Music Canada and Music Policy Forum, will take place on Saturday, May 11th at Canadian Music Week in Toronto, Ontario.  150-250 music advocates, artists, music industry professionals, city staff and elected officials from cities throughout North America, will gather for a full day of interaction, investigation and networking.

Discussions will tackle some of the key issues confronting music communities with an aim to provide tangible advice and recommendations that delegates can utilize in order to improve their own Music Cities.  This year, the themes of Inclusion and Collaboration will thread through the day. 

Here are a few of the topics that will be addressed: 

  • The Intersection Between Nighttime Economy and Music Strategies - How to Foster Cross-Industry Collaboration

  •  What’s new in co-working spaces/incubators? How do they level the playing field for artists?

  • Strategy Development - Back to the Basics

  • Collaboration and Cooperation: How to effectively build a coalition.

Hold the date and get ready to make the trip to Toronto!