My first Popkomm - a music industry trade show experience

This spring, before the summer holidays, we at Cymbidium Records decided to participate in the Popkomm music industry trade show in Berlin This meant early preparations: paying the entry fees, registering the participants, buying the plane tickets and making the hotel reservations. For me personally, it meant a first time trip, not only to Popkomm, but also to the city of Berlin. I was pretty excited.

Having done all the necessary actions and gone through our goals at the trade show it was time look at Popkomm itself. It started in 1989 in Düsseldorf as a meeting place for less-known indie musicians. The venue was quickly moved to Cologne where it was held for over a decade before moving again- this time to Berlin in 2004. Over the years it has outgrown from the indie venue status and reached mainstream success. While 2006 broke all records in terms of attendance - the 2009 Popkomm was cancelled all together due to reclining revenues. Talk about quick change! Due to this hiatus we were warned by some more frequent trade show -goers that the 2010 Popkomm would be a bit of question mark in terms of attendance and resulting deals.

I, together with my collegue, arrived in Berlin on an early morning flight on the 8. of September- the opening day of Popkomm. After a quick visit to the city and dropping our bags to the hotel we were ready to get first-hand experience of the trade show. (Although I have to admit the 2 hours of sleep I got before the morning flight started to take it´s toll.) First impression was that they had really chosen a great place for the venue: the historic airport of Tempelhof, which served as the air bridge during WW2, was a beautiful set-up. The trade show was divided into two different main sections: B2B marketplace and B2C marketplace, with the great entrance hall providing it´s space for the latter and semi-circular wing section over-looking the airstrip for the former. Upstairs had facilities for the congress room, net-working events and Jazzkomm- a kind of a event inside of an event I suppose. 

Tempelhof Airport: venue site with history. 

Cymbidium didn´t have it´s own stand at the B2B section, instead we were part of the Finnish national pavillion which was put together by Musex. It was a great thing since that way we could meet all the Finnish players easily and cruise around the show, and still have someone from Musex at place answering to possible questions about our label. There was quite a few national pavillions present, from the obvious European ones to U.S., South African and Indian pavillions to name a few. Although some important countries like the U.K. seemed to be missing.

While there was some good buzz and the wing section of the building was full of stands and pavillions, one couldn´t help but to think that the athmosphere could´ve been more enthusiastic and there could have been more companies and stands. Especially considering that it was an internationally important venue. This was most evident at the café and restaurant section placed outside on the airstrip: every time I visited it there were very few people and the athmosphere if anything, certainly wasn´t full of excitement.

I have to admit that I had been more energetic myself than I was on the first day of the venue - I think next time I´ll choose a flight on the previous day, rather than the 6.35 am flight on the first trade show day. Well, after a rough start my collegue and I managed to get going and do what were sent there for: talk to reps of different companies and convince them to turn to believers of the Cymbidium gospel. Which we did. So professionally day one was more of a good save than a triumph. But nevertheless initiation test passed- I hope.

Meetings taking place at the U.S. pavillion. 

                                  

                                          
Of course since we are talking about the music industry the day was far from over after the the meetings, congress and talks. Instead, after quick shower at the hotel and a meal at some Italian restaurant near the Tempelhof airport, it was time to enjoy the showcase gigs. The idea of the showcase gigs is for (mainly) the national music export companies to show of the potential of their future talent, this way convincing the foreign labels and promoters to invest in them. Not forgetting of course the other significant meaning, which is to give industry people a less formal arena for getting to know each other ie. to schmooze.

One of the showcase gigs at Popkomm. 

                                            
                                          

Since we didn´t have any bands from our label performing our main objective of the evening was indeed the fore-mentioned schmoozing and checking out some bands at the same time. It was a fun evening and I did get to meet people, but the at this point I had been awake for 18 hours straight so I didn´t stay up for the last bands, but opted for the hotel bed instead. Some memorable performances of the evening included the energetic gig from the Finnish ska band Capital Beat.


After a decent nights sleep at the hotel the second day of Popkomm was a far more enjoyable experience. It turned out to be a hectic day of pre-arranged and spontanious meetings, congress and country speed meetings. There seemed to be more buzz in the air also on general level and some of the country pavillions, like the German one, were bombarded with people wanting to talk to different companies. After trying it out on the previous day I was sincerely enjoying meeting new people and pitching.


I also attended a congress debate titled “web 3.0/music 3.0 -What does real time web mean to music business?” While it didn´t provide the definitive answers it certainly was interesting and both the host and the guests were knowledgeable and entertaining. This was in strong contrast to the previous day´s debate on “The business side of soundtrack” which not only was a bit boring, but in my opinion a bit of topic as well, as they didn´t really manage to provide any meaningful guidance to labels and artists on how to enter the film world.

The web 3.0/music 3.0 debate at the congress room. 

                                      

                            
The international speed meetings turned out to be a fun event. Each country was available to interested parties for a couple of hours, with 6 minutes reserved for each pitch. While at first it seemed a bit irrelevant to pitch to companies that were a bit of our radar, after a while I decided it was better to give it a shot anyway in the spirit of “you never know”. It remains to be seen what the actual outcome of these meetings will be, but at least it was fun to do.

The third and final day of Popkomm was a B2C marketplace event and for a lot of people a bit of down day to be honest: you had met almost everyone you wanted to and handed out most of your promo material. Of course the national pavillions were still busy and like most other Finns we ended up hanging out at the Musex stand- giving away the final promos that we had. The crowd attendance for the B2C day was ok. but the place certainly wasn´t packed. Most people were already waiting for the Berlin Festival which was going to take place at the very same Tempelhof airport during the weekend.

Before the night´s festival gigs I had to move my stuff from the company hotel to a hostel in Kreuzberg, luckily with my own room though. After having dinner at a local restaurant and taking a nap at the hostel I started to feel really tired and had developed a cold as well. So, reluctantly I decided to hit the hay instead of going to the festival- even though it meant missing Fever Ray and Fat Boy Slim.

Next day I heard that the organizers had cancelled Fat Boy Slim´s performance due to safety hazards. My friends also told me that they had been unable to see Fever Ray for the same reason: the organizers had not been prepared for such big crowds and had fenced the areas too tightly, resulting in a funnel-effect where people just couldn´t move forward. This seemed strange as they had the whole airstrip to use: had they put the stages facing the airstrip they could´ve fitted in as many people as they wanted. The organizers were also probably extra cautious because of what happened at this years Love Parade Festival in Germany.


The following day I went around Berlin a little a bit and had a great time checking out some cafés and street life in Prenzlauer Berg. After enjoying a Korean BBQ in Kreuzberg and seing a local American-Berliner band perform in a rock joint in the area my collegues and I were ready for the second night of the Berlin Festival. Much to our surprise upon entering the area at midnight we were told that the organizers had decided to close the event- 6 or 7 hours early. Hmm, not the most well-organized festival I have seen. So much for the German precision.. Luckily there are tons of great bars and night life in Berlin, so we had a good time anyway.

Next day it was time head home after a full day´s worth of walking around the city. All and all - a trip well worth making- both personally and professionally. Berlin turned out to be a great city with many cool areas with different characters, funky cafés, bars and restaurants that, at least compared to Finland, are amazingly cheap.


Attending Popkomm of course served as my first experience of an industry trade show and also gave me a good insight on how the music industry sees and presents itself today. I felt and heard different vibes and opinions among the industry people attending, variying from the very bleak, there is no future -type of comments presented by some industry veterans, to the enthusiastic optimism shared by some of the digital start-up companies. As for Popkomm I think it needs to recover and reinvent itself like the music industry in general: this might have not been the best performance, but one hopes that it´s a comeback promising of better things.