ILMC 29 CONFERENCE REPORT
Alex Hardee instructed ILMC members on the best method to carry a shark across Miami, during Tales from the Front Line.
Tales From the Front Line Chair: Paul Crockford (PC Management) Guest speakers: Alex Hardee (Coda Agency), Andy Lenthall, (Production Services Association), Adam Parsons (Siren Management), Lucy Noble (Royal Albert Hall), Andrew Zweck (Sensible Events)
The most light-hearted session of ILMC united a number of special guests for 60-minutes of live industry anecdotes. Alex Hardeeopened the panel by saying: “They say you come to ILMC twice: once on your way up, once on your way down... It’s good to be back.” The panellists talked about their arrest records, with the highlight being Ed Bicknell’s tale from Rome when his band’s fireworks went off the wrong way and hit army staff taking care of event security. They thought they were being attacked, so they arrested the entire backstage. Paul Crockford cited a Rolling Stones show at Roundhay Park, when the production manager forced crew to paint a mile long fence in different shades of grey several times. Andrew Zweck, meanwhile, remembered a show where he and four other guys had to fight off a furious audience with mic stands, because the band had cancelled. And Hardee recalled walking eight miles across Miami with a beheaded shark. Enough said.
Workshop: Getting to know Snapchat Hosts: Juan David Borrero & Glenne Christiaansen (Snapchat)
Elastic Artists: A cautionary tale Host: Olaf Furniss (Music Tourist) Guest: Jon Slade (Elasticine)
The collapse of Elastic Artists is a hell of a story and multiple cautionary tales lie darkly wrapped together within it. Founder Jon Slade gave a brutally honest overview of what went wrong and explained that an agency going bust was without precedent, so there was no reference manual. One of a string of problems the agency faced was using third-party software for their accounts, something they had done from the off. As Elastic scaled up it became unmanageable and the software was compromised and threw their accounts into total chaos. “In 18 months it went from being completely audited to a complete car crash.” Recalling the need to file for administration, Slade said, “It was the worst thing you could imagine – telling 30 people they had lost their jobs.”
Providing a tutorial of Snapchat’s various functions, Juan David Borrero said, “We are a camera company and we are reinventing the way people use cameras to interact with their friends.” With innovation at the core of what the company does, Borrero revealed that 150m people use the app every single day, with the customer-base viewing snaps with geofilters more than 1billion times every day. Glenne Christiaansen said that the company has seen artists, bands, venues and events using geofilters, with Coachella, the Brit Awards and the Kiss FM Jingle Ball having recently created their own. The hosts revealed that most users have the sound turned on when they activate Snapchat, making it an ideal conduit for the music industry.
The Think Tank with Herman Schueremans, Andrew Zweck & Bryan Grant Host: Gordon Masson (IQ)
Industry veterans Bryan Grant, Herman Schueremans and Andrew Zweck fielded a diverse range of topics from how to beat jetlag to how the panellists got into the business? Highlights included Zweck’s tale of being fired by Elton John for, ultimately, leaving the thorns on his long-stem roses; Schueremans’ tricky ambition to one day work with Jimi Hendrix; and Grant’s admission that, in his spare time, he loves nothing more than pottering away in his Fulham allotment garden, safe in the knowledge that the billion-pound pocket of land will always be protected from property developers.
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Senior Snapchat staffers Glenne Christiaans en and Juan David Borrero flew in from Los Angeles to instruct ILMC delegates on the benefits the camera app can deliver to live music operations.