The Lowdown on BBC Introducing LIVE

For twelve years BBC Introducing has been helping upcoming artists break into the industry. Every year the BBC holds an event (BBC Introducing LIVE), a relative candy shop for musicians to get insider information from the insiders themselves. Alumni of the service include Little Simz, Ed Sheeran, and George Ezra, insanely successful now but each had their humble beginnings with the BBC.

For three gloomy days at the east London Tobacco Docks a couple Felix music editors pottered about like imposters. The event boasted a wide selection of lectures, seminars and workshops. Some of the biggest keynote speakers were Catfish and the Bottlemen and the ever-elusive Jake Bugg. Despite being some of the biggest names in music they didn’t have a lot of specific tip and tricks to share. It was more just interesting to hear them tell anecdotes of the journey they took to stardom. The ones who truly knew what they were talking about were the stars behind the shows. Talks on social media management, collecting a fanbase and how to tour on little money were always packed.

Abbey Road technicians gave seminars on new tech popping up in the industry like cloud editing music software (basically google docs for musicians) and adaptive music platforms that provide a more interactive experience with sound. MelodyVR members spoke about the place of VR in the music industry and how the tech may end up helping you get closer to the artists you love.

One of the scariest things we heard was that TicTok and Triller are the future of the music industry, and that pop music may be taken over by adaptive AI music platforms. The experts may be right, but I’d prefer it if they weren’t.

Showrooms were set-up all over the place by companies like Marshall, Spotify, Shure, Yamaha, etc. They displayed all their latest tech giving musicians the much needed option of trying before buying. On top of that workshops were held by mixing and mastering veterans helping producers take their work to the next level or work through problems they had been facing.

Whatever the role (musician, manager, producer, journalist) there was something to be gained from the event. Even if you didn’t go to learn you could still see the live music acts dotted around the venue with artists like Easy Life, Celeste and Lily Moore. Any Imperialites out there considering a side venture in the music industry, I highly recommend you make it to Introducing LIVE 2020.