The 24 hour conversation is over.

My immediate reflections are positive. I really think that the organisers have pulled off a successful event, in what was a very challenging format. Proposing to host a continuous conversation with 200 people, multiple speakers, plenty of prominent Mancunian advocates and a number of celebrities (not to mention a couple of ego’s), was a brave move.

As a ’stop gap event’, the TWE has probably raised a good number of complications about how a more permanent memorial to Tony Wilson should take shape. Talk of a summer school was still evident in some quarters over the last day or so, plus calls from Peter Saville to repeat the conversation next year.

What Manchester City Councils stance is on that is yet to be seen. But everyone at the Council should be very happy with this weekend. Sarah Benjamins, the project manager at MCC, should be applauded for managing the City’s input. Similarly, Sir Richard Leese, Leader of the council has shown a side that most people would perhaps never see - the willingness to engage in open and transparent conversation at a forum like this.

I was particularly impressed with his interjection during one of the sessions, where he implored people to look forward…that’s what the ‘talent’ and the discussion was there for - to look forward and shape the city as a valuable part of the regional and wider economic development. At a time when many were in retrospective mood, I thought it was a timely reminder.

Similarly, everyone else involved in the organisation and delivery should be pretty pleased. Obviously, there’s always things to learn and build on…so from my perspective (and from talking to a few people in attendance) what could make it better next time?

I heard from a couple of people that the conversation was a little mono directional at times, with not enough opportunity for the talent to question the experienced. Indeed, I’m echoing Paul Robinsons comment that even when appealing for a little more chaos, the “rowdy ones were always shut up“. That’s a shame, as it seems that much about the people and activity being remembered were just that, a little chaotic.

A difficult line to tread. However, perhaps the active internet stream forum on Mogulus could have been fed into the tent for those who couldn’t attend to have had a chance to enter the conversation. This would certainly have opened up the dialogue a little and perhaps prompted more discussion inside. Generating lively discussion is difficult, especially for 24 hours and perhaps if the more ‘unconference’ style of some gatherings had been followed then the level of discussion may have been even lower. To have an agenda that just said “turn up and talk’ could have led to a very flat event indeed.

Having said that, there’s definitely opportunity for social tools and some of the methods used amongst the social media crowd to have more of a prominence next time. Some sessions could have been more like workshops and the restriction on photography and video lifted. Harnessing sites like Flickr and Twitter could have helped build more of a real time presence on the web than was evident this time.

Even more, a reworking of the green room could have helped as discouraging true mixing of the experienced and talented was sometimes reflected in the conversations. A bit of a ‘them and us’ feel that was commented upon a couple of times to me. Some more intimate break out sessions, wouldn’t have gone amiss and helped the talent get closer to the experienced. After all, we know that it’s difficult to walk up to someone you admire and strike up a conversation.

So, a difficult challenge. The organisers set themselves a format that was a tough ask. All in all, they pulled it off.

One final thought. I hope we at i4SM get a chance to talk to Peter Saville about our vision for the Institute.  That’s a conversation we’d really relish.

Over and out.

-pc.

In a scenario where you have Alan McGee, former boss of Creation Records and Tim Burgess of The Charlatans, plus around 60 of the assembled ‘talent’ at TWE it would seem to be a pretty could forum to open dialogue between experience and those seeking advice. After, all this is a ‘conversation’ event.

But, for me, this was a missed opportunity.  Let’s face it, there’s a lot to talk about where and how the media industry, particularly recording artists, is going and in what kind of shape it could be in, in the future.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.

But, in the gaps there were some interesting comments, particularly from Alan McGee. I liked his reference to the music industry now being “easy, but hard”. Easy because almost anyone can build themselves a presence on the web using a site like MySpace. The great success of MySpace has been down to their simplifying the creation of web pages for everyone and then latterly forming a considerable niche as the ‘place to be’ for musical types.

But because it is easy, it is hard. Because anyone can do it, it means there are millions of bands on MySpace, millions of bands with a presence of sorts and millions of bands looking for the attention of a limited number of A&R guys. The stories of bands making it without the traditional A&R approach are still, I would argue, few and far between and the mega-successful new bands are still coming through the traditional methods.

So, the point is that it’s now harder to get the attention of the people who still make the market, harder to get airtime and harder to make it to the ranks of the mega-successful.

Once you are successful though, the industry is changing - or at least the dynamics of the power structure are changing. McGee points out that once a band is famous, why does it need a record company? Tim Burgess is sat next to him as he’s saying this, but didn’t extend the point, unfortunately, when his own band - the Charlatans - has recently made their latest album available as a free download. Radiohead did the same and this practice is gaining momentum.

McGee is right though, it’s OK to do this once you are famous as the buying public will lap it up and you have opportunities to generate revenue elsewhere. When you’re an upcoming band in a thriving musical city like Manchester, it’s harder to stand out from the crowd, especially when that crowd has become so much bigger.

Will the changes that the established bands like Radiohead and The Charlatans are forging trickle down to the grass roots and on the way change how bans become popular? Is there a different model to the industry than we see now, or is it so embedded and intertwined amongst A&R, promoters, record labels, radio playlists and TV pluggers as to be an even more difficult struggle for the bands trying to make it?

That’s more questions than I intended to end this post with, but I suppose what I’m really questioning is whether all the focus on social media in the music industry, all the activity and all the perceived visibility for budding bands is actually making it harder to succeed than we’ve seen in recent history.

To return to the focus of this session. It would have been fantastic to hear Tim Burgess comments on this and even better to have heard from the assembled audience who, let’s face it, will likely never get the chance to be in the same room as these guys again.

-pc.