Features
Liveurope Online Festival Aims To ‘Renew The European Music Scene’
– Anna Andreu performing at the Sala Apolo.
The Spanish artist has been confirmed for this year’s Liveurope Online Festival.
Liveurope’s annual festival is taking place for the third time Sept. 24-25. The event showcasing a selection of up-and-coming European talent, as well as the continent’s beautiful music venues, will take place as an online-only edition.
Pollstar reached out to Elise Phamgia, coordinator of Liveurope, to find out more.
Charlotte Adigery (BE), Mekdes (DK), Nebraska (FR), DRENS (DE), Pijammies (SI), Ooostblok (NL), Zvíre Jménem Podzim (CZ), Anna Andreu (ES), have already been confirmed to perform live. More than ten acts from ten different nationalities will make up the final bill, “and they will all be streamed from some of the most iconic music venues in Europe,” according to Phamgia, who added, “it’s also a lucky coincidence that most of our open program takes place between 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. (CET), so it’s very much compatible with U.S. time zones, especially for those on the East coast who are curious to tune in!”
The concerts will be live streamed on Liveurope’s Facebook page.
– Elise Phamgia
Coordinator of Liveurope.
Liveurope is an initiative supporting concert venues in their efforts to promote up-and-coming European artists. It is coordinated by Ancienne Belgique, the internationally acclaimed concert venue located in Brussels, Belgium, leader of Pollstar’s Magna Charta club category for two consecutive years.
The Liveurope festival was established in 2018 with support from Creative Europe, the EU’s funding program for the culture and audiovisual sectors. It receives a grant of €500,000 ($590,000) annually, which is mostly used to encourage Liveurope’s 15 member venues to take more risks in booking European acts from unchartered territories throughout their concert season.
“As you can imagine, the coronavirus outbreak has suspended this core activity and this has driven us to find new ways to support our members in their efforts to highlight the European music scene,” Phamgia told Pollstar.
“This edition of the Liveurope Festival is a good example of how we are adapting our mission to the new reality faced by the sector,” Phamgia continued.
The live industry has been suffering enormously under the worldwide lockdowns and employment bans. It’s already impossible to keep track of the people that have been made redundant across the sector, and it’s not hard to imagine that their number will only increase once the furlough schemes and short term employment programs end.
It’s hard to imagine the business emerging on the other side relatively unfazed.
According to Phamgia, it’s not all bad. “The current crisis has demonstrated once again the agility of our industry. Since March, live music operators have had to reinvent their practices, and develop new forms of activities, building on existing collaborations and in solidarity with their counterparts in the sector,” she explained.
What is more, “We see a growing appetite to question current practices, and to lay the foundations for a more desirable future for our sector: be it to question sustainability approaches, how to better take into account movements for greater inclusion and diversity in artistic programs or to improve dialogue with public authorities. It is also to collectively address these challenges that we wanted to propose conference sessions dedicated to music venue professionals in our conference.”
Phamgia was referring to the talks between decision-makers and music professionals, which form part of the Liveurope Online Festival, and can also be watched live on Facebook.
“And yet,” she emphasized, “this shouldn’t disguise the starker reality and the heavy financial stress that live music operators are suffering from. Until they can fully resume their activities, live music operators are deprived of their main sources of revenue and many have to remain closed or maintain their staff on temporary unemployment, when they are not simply driven out of business.”
AB – Liveurope member Ancienne Belgique
A look into the packed main auditorium.
Representatives of Liveurope visited last year’s SXSW to talk about the values of live music in the U.S. and Europe. The current crisis has highlighted these values, be they social, cultural or economic values, more than any regular event could have. You don’t realize what you’ve got until it’s gone. “One of the biggest challenges now is to see how this growing awareness can materialize in concrete action if we want to establish solid grounds for our sector to recover in the future,” said Phamgia.
The Liveurope Online Festival is a way for U.S. professionals to get up to speed on the latest live music developments and new artists arising in Europe.
In the beginning of September, the members of Liveurope reaffirmed their commitment “to boost the circulation of Europe’s rich musical diversity and highlight the unique role venues can take in reviving the European music ecosystem,” in a joint statement dubbed “Renewing the European music scene.”
“These may be testing times where everything is in question, yet we refuse to give up on our common convictions and battles. We work in clubs and venues because we believe our spaces are essential to what constitutes our music scenes. We strive to present new artists on our stages, to create unique experiences for our audiences and to breathe life in our communities,” an extract from the statement reads.
It also mentions, that the EU was in the final stages of adopting “a historical EU recovery plan & long-term budget.”
Phamgia explained, “In recent years, the EU Institutions have been developing the outlines of a policy for the European music sector, and during our conference, we will discuss how such a policy could be channeled to support the recovery of our sector.
“Around the table for this panel, we will have major players, including EU Commissioner for culture Mariya Gabriel, Chair of the CULT Committee of the European Parliament Sabine Verheyen, as well as the newly appointed President of France’s National Council for music Jean-Philippe Thiellay.”