From Discovery To Stage: Programming Tomorrow’s Artists with Adam Ryan

#HowWeListen Live: In Conversation Podcast

Our next guest is Head of Music for The Great Escape Festival, Adam Ryan.

What goes into curating, booking and presenting Europe’s largest festival and conference dedicated to the discovery of new music? Marc’s guest, Adam Ryan, has spent the better part of his adult life tirelessly discovering, promoting and presenting new music locally, nationally and internationally. He is now the Head of Music at The Great Escape Festival, taking place annually in Brighton, UK. How different is it curating a renowned three-day festival versus booking a venue? What can today’s artists learn about building strong live promoter relationships? Can artists book themselves onto festivals before having a team? How important is it to “be nice” to your promoter and your sound person? COVID decimated the live music community around the globe. Has any good come from an entire industry needing to pivot and re-evaluate what it means to present live music? What does the future hold for the industry? Marc asks all of these questions, whilst finding out how we all bounce back (if we have not already).

"I always say, to be export ready, you need to have the start of a team, it could be a manager, it could be your mum! It could be anybody, just somebody who comes with you, so when you’re performing, you only have to focus on that, and somebody else is doing your networking."

#HowWeListen Live: In Conversation

1:00 - The Great Escape

1:49 - Farringdon

4:19 - Radio One

4:29 - The Great Escape Conference

5:34 - Towcester (pronounced toaster)

5:40 - Fred Perry

5:45 - Barfly

9:03 - Creation

9:34 - KOKO

10:47 - Mama and Comp., Jon Mack, Reading & Leeds, Martin Elbourne, Glastonbury,

13:21 - Independent Promoters

14:55 - Partners, Showcases

16:49 - The First Fifty

23:55 - French export office, Sounds Australia, CIMA(Canada), Estonia,

24:30 - Mac Demarco

27:13 - Korea

29:03 - Canadian Music Associations

30:05 - USA

30:37 - Holland Music Festival

32:44 - Export ready

34:56 - The Great Escape online events

36:00 - Cancelled events

40:44 - Huw Stephens

41:37 - #HowWeListen, music discovery

42:04 - Coldplay

46:16 - Byta.com

Music by Fin Productions and Oliver Lyu

Episode Credits:

Artwork by Jen Pmphrey

Hosted by Marc Brown

Series coordinated by Jamie Ford

Produced and edited by Colin MacKenzie

Music by Fin Productions and Oliver Lyu