Published
Thu, Jul 26, 2012, 10:45
- The annual German music industry conference is bowing out after 23 years of operation.
Popkomm, the annual music industry conference in Germany, is calling it quits after 23 years in business.
According to reports, Popkomm has been having trouble for years, and its end will come as little surprise to many industry figures. The conference has long had diminishing attendance year after year, and was canceled altogether in 2009 (inadvertently setting the stage for the first BerMuDa festival, which has taken place in Berlin every year since).
"Popkomm was already dead before it moved from Cologne to Berlin in 2004 because by then the music business was already having structural problems," says Prof. Dr. Rolf Budde, a music publisher and member of GEMA's supervisory board. "The industry does not have the money anymore to book large booths. Today you only want to meet and see interesting bands."
Popkomm's demise will pave the way for other German music industry conferences, such as Berlin Music Week and Reeperbahn in Hamburg. Budde and others consider these events better-suited to today's music business than Popkomm, as they focus less on centralized conference events and more on musical performances and organic networking possibilities. As one industry bigwig put it: "The good old trade-fair will have a hard time in the future."