- You have to take your hat off to the team behind the Ibiza International Music Summit. In three short years they've created a conference that has cemented its place on the electronic music calendar and produced a landmark event in the iconic World Heritage Site of Dalt Vila, high above Ibiza Town.
The conference has a solid schedule of topical and pressing issues within the dance music business, as well as providing a platform for artists, promoters and industry folk to say their piece. Generally, albeit interesting, the content was very much focused on what seems to be a very small group of artists and the business needs that goes along with them. David Guetta and Deamau5 were mentioned on nearly every panel, almost as though they are representative of where everyone who was attending should be aiming. Similarly, discussions about dance music in the arena, breaking America or branding, merchandising and sponsoring were surely applicable to such a minority of electronic artists as to be borderline irrelevant.
The best discussions were those were the music took centre stage. Sasha, for example, was in an extremely frank mood when discussing his reasons for ditching Ableton in place of Pioneer's CDJ2000s and this debate never drifted far from how technology is at the mercy of the music and dance floor, rather than the other way around. A representative from Google wasn't quite feeling this vibe when he simply pitched their new Nexus phone to the audience, although at least he got his message across, which is more than can be said for the spanglish ramblings of the Ibiza club owners. A delay in the schedule meant that everyone disappeared for lunch just as the "Disco Mafia Dons" were starting to talk about the magic of Ibiza. The thing is, I completely agreed with their sentiment: It just didn't transmit.
Overall, having sat through almost every panel, it's testament to what's on offer that I can say I did take something from every one, though it was the lack of real debate and difference of opinions that has stuck with me. In fact, it was the presence of exactly this element in RA's Presidential Debate with Steve Lawler and Andrea Pelino from Circo Loco that made evident what some of the other panels missed. I appreciate it's about business, but isn't that all the more reason to thrash these things out properly and recruit some more characters? Where's Seth Troxler when you need him?
If the conference scores a "good, but room for improvement," then it's hard not to go overboard about the Grand Finale event. A variety of music choices encompassing the likes of Skream, Mark Ronson and Sasha didn't make for anything particular cohesive, but it did create a great show in the most amazing of locations. It's completely unprecedented that an electronic music event is taking place in this venue and throughout it was hard to escape the Medieval environs that the diverse music echoed around. So while programming Mark "now available for bah mitzvahs" Ronson's pop before Sasha's epic prog and Buraka Som Sistema's hardcore-funk appears a tricky one, it only served to add to the charm of the event, and its success, to guarantee a return next year with another selection box of line-up.