For those of you who haven’t noticed – again it’s been time for all2gethernow (a2n) [access protected, 2016-03-10]. This has been the reason for having a time-out with ContentSphere.

Frankly, everything you are reading here of course is supposed to be taken with a grain of salt. Why? Well, from curating and/or moderating two or three discussions in 2009 plus placing a good number of speakers, I shifted up some gears in 2010 at full throttle – and found myself sharing the task of being in charge of Programme and Content together with my good friend Andrea Goetzke.

The numbers (last year’s numbers in brackets):

  • 5 (3) days
  • 130 (60) discussions, presentations and workshops
  • 250 (130) speakers
  • 2.000 (1.000) attendees

The full programme featuring seven theme tracks can still be found online. We are working on the documentation right now and got some marvellous feedback.

Taking place for the second year now, the Berlin music conference has changed its face in many ways. In my humble opinion it’s been a great week from 6-10 September. There are some issues to work on, some new concepts to keep, and a few ideas from 2009 which should be revived.

You might easily imagine this is not the right place to mention all our speakers. Just to give you an idea: Jill Sobule, Martin Atkins (Invisible Records [site temporarily down, 2016-03-10] / Tour:Smart), Tim Clark (ie:music), Mike Masnick (TechDirt), Martin Thörnkvist (SongsIWish [link broken, 2016-03-10]), Jason Sigal (FreeMusicArchive), Rupert Hine (Producer), Dave Haynes (Soundcloud), Mark Chung (Freibank), Dieter Gorny (BVMI), Nancy Baym (onlinefandom.com), Micki Krimmel (NeighborGoods.net / Mickipedia), Zoe Keating, Steve Lawson, Reinhold Heil & Johnny Klimek (film composers for “Run Lola Run”, “The International”, “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer”, “One Hour Photo”)… plus a whole bunch more.

Maybe you remember that in 2009, all2gethernow stepped in when Popkomm 2009 had been cancelled. We declared our concept to be based on a bottom-up approach – targeting musicians, startups and social media people as well as fans, but also higher level business. Yet, though trying to establish a kind of round-table to talk about how to improve the cultural business’ crisis most executives ignored the event.

a2n became Popkomm’s counterpart. Its competitor. You had to declare who’s side you were to join. Unfortunately, though causing some media attention the result didn’t fully match our approach – all2gethernow. If you want to change anything to improve any stakeholder’s situation in music business you have to take into account everyone’s view.

B-A-N-G. 2010.

For the first time, the City of Berlin announced establishing a “Berlin Music Week” – similar to the successful “Berlin Fashion Week“. It was the usual suspects who were invited to take part: Berlin Music Commission, Berlin Club Commission, Berlin Festival, and Popkomm [link broken, 2016-03-10].

… and all2gethernow. – – – WHAT?!?

Ok, it wasn’t that easy, but somehow we managed to find our roles. While Popkomm was in charge of the trade show, all2gethernow handled the entire conference itself.

I apologise if I’m overly explicit in stressing out the fact that both are two entirely separate entities taking care of different tasks – but it’s a necessity. Even Billboard got it wrong [link broken, 2016-03-10]. The communication of the complex network of entities within Berlin Music Week admittedly was just too confusing for anyone to understand.

Fact is: Conference 2010 = all2gethernow.

We listened to visitors and speakers alike, and we already have a number of issues identified to avoid in the future. Also, we are working on structure and concept. I can’t disclose anything yet, but rest assured your feedback is highly valuable and it’s been heard.

So you were there? Please contact me: senges[at]a-2-n.com

Support us in building the next all2gethernow. YOUR all2gethernow.

In particular, we would like to involve more musicians, artists, songwriters. Which are the issues you want to hear more about? What opportunities do you want to be offered? Which services do you like to see?

Actually, question is – what is it that would make you attend all2gethernow? Why didn’t you attend this year? There’s no reason in staging a music conference if musicians won’t attend.

Oh yeah – please do write as well if you’re not from Germany. Other than this year, we entirely will go international next year. German language events will be strictly exceptional.

This text has been published under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0 Unported licence. If you would like to make use of the text or parts of it in a way that goes beyond the scope please ask me.