A cynic might suggest that the only growth area in the music industry these days is the music-conference business. 

The latest additions to the international music-biz confab calendar are the One Movement for Music and MUSEXPO Asia Pacific conferences, held concurrently in Perth, Australia, Oct. 15-18.

(Did you know, by the way, that Perth is in fact the largest city in the world?  Here’s proof, and everything.)

One Movement for Music focused on the indie sector, while MUSEXPO was more majors-oriented. The weekend also included live performances by an incredible array of local and international acts at the One Movement Showcase Music Festival and the Fringe Festival.

All told, more than 200 artists, 100 speakers, hundreds of delegates and thousands of music fans converged on Perth for the weekend. (Maybe that’s why the city’s temperature hit a record high of 37C on Saturday the 17th.)

I have mixed feelings about music-business conferences. Comparisons with rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic sometimes come to mind, as yet another speaker drones on about the digital challenge facing the industry, etc., etc. Other times there are moments of wit and inspiration that stimulate the old gray matter, not to mention great music.

The long schlep from Tokyo to Perth (including a change of planes in Hong Kong that unfortunately didn’t allow time for a dim sum nosh) made me unenthusiastic about two days of schmoozing and spieling. And trying to keep track of two conferences taking place simultaneously (in hotels a couple of blocks apart) was frustrating – I missed Ralph Simon’s one-on-one Q&A with superstar songwriter Diane Warren, for example.

But the schmoozing was great, and the spieling at the panel discussions was often informative and even thought-provoking. The best panel session I attended was “Incredible India,” a lively and informative gabfest with some key Indian industry players. They made a convincing case for India as the international music business’s great hope, pointing out that the country’s mobile-music market (of which ringback tunes have a 70% share) is bigger than the physical market, and is growing faster than China’s mobile sector.

“India has gone beyond Bollywood,” claimed panel moderator Sat Bisla.

One theme that emerged from the conference was a developing consensus on the so-called “ISP levy,” which would see Internet service providers compensate rights-holders for transmission of their works.

While many people on both sides of the issue are wary of a legislative solution a la France’s “three strikes” law, they feel government involvement is desirable.

“The role of government is to provide a regulatory framework for negotiation,” said former BMG heavyweight Michael Smellie (whose latest project is online music-fan portal posse.com) during the “Busting Open Digital Myths” panel session.

Beggars Group digital director Simon Wheeler – who has become a regular on the international music-biz confab circuit --  went a bit further: “Legislation may be needed as a stick or threat to get ISPs and rights-holders to work out a deal.”

Conspicuous by virtue of his non-presence in Perth was cyber-kvetcher Bob “WHAT THE FUCK?!” Lefsetz. Another music-biz conference regular not in attendance was Nettwerk supremo Terry McBride, which was too bad, as he’s always good for a wacky quote. “We’ve got to leave the sandbox and go to the beach” was a McBride gem from June’s Music Matters conference in Hong Kong.

Notwithstanding the generally high caliber of panelists at the conferences, there were some snooze-inducing patches as inspiration flagged and panel overload took its toll.

Here are some helpful suggestions to make music-biz conferences less dull:

• Use moderators who know how to work a room. It’s no good just sitting on stage and asking questions from a written agenda. This is the age of interactivity; one-dimensional, one-way college-lecture-style presentations don’t make it anymore. Get the audience involved.
• Use multimedia creatively. OK, we’ve all sat through crap PowerPoint presentations, but speakers need to know how to complement their words with images and sounds to get their point across. For example, the Transmission conferences in Vancouver allow audience members and panelists to post text messages that are displayed on a screen at the side of the stage during panel sessions, which adds another dimension to the conference discourse.
• Use breakout groups (as Transmission does) to complement the main conference speeches and panel discussions.
• Ditch the panel/stage/audience format. Can’t the music industry – which is in the business of providing entertainment, after all – find a more exciting way of filling up time at conferences than having four or five people sit in comfy chairs on stage and pontificate to the semi-somnambulant masses?　
• Install a cliché-o-meter that emits a rude noise or maybe even a foul smell every time somebody trots out a hoary platitude instead of an original idea. If I could monetize all the times I’ve heard “monetize,” I’d be a rich man.
• Spike the mineral water.

One Movement for Music and MUSEXPO Asia Pacific were organized by David Chitty, director of Perth-based Sunset Events; legendary Australian concert promoter Michael Chugg; Sat Bisla, founder/president of Beverly Hills-based talent agency A&R Worldwide (which organizes the MUSEXPO series of music-biz conferences); and Eventscorp, the  Western Australian government’s events agency.

Their goal is to make the conference(s) the Asia-Pacific region’s premier music-biz event, which puts them head-to-head in competition with Hong Kong-based Music Matters. Is the region big enough for both of them? Probably, as long as music-biz players don’t get too tired of each other’s company and continue to have travel budgets.

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