Last week, CIMA returned to the Big Apple for its second business mission to New York City entitled Music & the City That Never Sleeps. Prominent Canadian music business types signed up as delegates and had an intensive three days of one-on-one targeted meetings, roundtable discussions and insightful tech visits and workshops. The purpose of the mission was to provide participating companies with an exclusive opportunity to undertake an extensive, valuable and structured foray into the New York music market.
After an orientation on Sunday night, CIMA’s delegation kicked into high gear on Monday morning with a roundtable discussion held at the Coffee Shop World Room that targeted live music and touring in New York City. Our participants got valuable tips from US speakers Nick Bodor (Cake Shop), Doug Croy (The Windish Agency), Mehmet Dede (Drom), Stephen Dima (Dima Presents) and Gary Fortune (Mondo NYC). From there we visited the historic Gibson Showroom where a session was hosted by the new must have music sharing app Cymbal.fm followed by a tour of the showroom which was a guitar players fantasy!
At the end of each of the three days, our delegation had targeted one-on-one meetings scheduled by our in market consultant. These meetings were organized ahead of time for the participants after consultations about their mission business objectives.
It was right back to work on Tuesday morning with another Roundtable discussion on the intricate world of sync and publishing featuring US speakers Keith D’Arcy (Songs Publishing), Melissa Emert-Hutner (Kobalt Music Publishing), Matthew Evertsen (Moondog Music), Jedd Katrancha (Downtown Music Publishing) and Jean Scofield (mcgarrybowen). The afternoon was spent at tech tours and workshops where delegates visited feature.fm, the only truly native music ad platform, followed by a stop at the Next Big Sound, an analytics and insight platform held across all social medias. On Tuesday night, our Canadian delegation enjoyed a unique experience as they got the opportunity to watch the US elections right in the heart of New York City.
On the final day, our Roundtable discussions continued with a foray into marketing, press relations and radio led by US industry experts Leigh Lust (Pledge Music), Mischa Pearlman (freelance journalist), Perry Serpa (Vicious Kid PR) and Marni Wandner (Sneak Attack Media). The last day of tech visits started with a meeting at BandsinTown, a great app for tour announcements, where our delegates had a focused session on how to make this a valuable tool for their artists, managers and labels. The next visit was held at Soundcloud, where delegates got a first look at the company’s brand new Soundcloud Go mobile app, recently launched in Canada, as well as some insights on how best to use the product to their advantage. On our action packed Wednesday we made one final stop at Indaba Music, an online music collaboration tool.
To absorb every last minute of knowledge in New York, we had a special dinner with Matthew Covey of Tamizdat and our sister association A2IM held at the Troy Liquor Bar where our delegation learned about the challenges and advancements of the VISA process that is currently being worked on with multiple partners including CIMA.
To conclude an excellent few days of information and B2B meetings, we reconnected with US business associates at the Speakeasy Industry Mixer held at Troy Liquor Bar, an event produced by Sneak Attack Media, Bandsintown, CIMA and SOCAN.
CIMA was excited to once again work with a great team in New York City and pleased to have one of our sponsors, Rodney Murphy of SOCAN, join us for this mission and provide support on the ground.
CIMA gratefully acknowledges and thanks our generous sponsors and partners: Canadian Music Week (CMW), Corus Entertainment, the Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings (FACTOR), the Government of Canada (through the Canada Music Fund), Global Affairs Canada (through the GOA program), Harvard Broadcasting, Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC), the Radio Starmaker Fund, Stingray Music and the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN)