“The East is moving” so it goes. Before we lose our footing, we’re getting another opportunity to take stock of 2014 and hazard a few guesses as to where things are going.
Dongdong’s convention program has a nice spread that includes copyright, a panel on digitally-enabled business models (that sounds rather 2001 but features representatives from Douban, LeTV Music and Musickid), music export, and a couple of deep dives into specific businesses (Bad Records) and artists (Sino trip hop “queen” Fifi Rong).
We recommend you check out Eric de Fontenay’s panel on China Export: while you can’t wait for your homeland to change, you can always be a self-starter and push to get heard in the international arena. If indeed there are over 235,000 Chinese students studying in the US alone, there’s a compelling argument that with the right route and a little funding you could carve out a nice little tour. Just make sure you have an end game.
Our sister company Split Works will be dispatching co-founders Nathaniel Davis and Archie Hamilton to participate in two panels. Nathaniel will be on “The Fan’s Point of View” panel, which is being curated by China Youthology. What is it like to be a music fan in 2014? Delegates will get the chance to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth, with 4 representative ‘fans’ engaging with 4 industry pros. Let’s hope they 马上 discover some amazing new insights. Archie will be speaking on the wittily titled “The Big-Mac Era of Festivals” panel – for a preview of what he may have to say, check out these previous features (here and here) on Shanghai’s festival scene. There’s also an extended discussion out via Hypebot’s Upward Spiral Podcast.
