AMIN announces Emily Collins as chair and Mike Harris as deputy

Following its 2019 AGM, the Australian Music Industry Network (AMIN) has announced MusicNSW managing director Emily Collins as its chair.

Mike Harris, CEO at WAM (West Australian Music), will serve as deputy chair.

AMIN is the national organisation made up of the heads of Australia’s eight state music bodies – QMusic, Music Victoria, Music SA, WAM, Music NT, Music Tasmania, MusicACT and MusicNSW.

It has a combined membership of over 7,500 artists, venues, managers, promoters, labels, and other music businesses.

Collins says, “It’s one of the few truly national music organisations with representation in all states and territories.

“It has a grassroots, ground-up approach to music development and I’m committed to working with my state colleagues to improve the health and sustainability of the music ecosystem through keeping artists at the heart of everything we do”.

One of AMIN’s key focuses for 2019 will be a National Musician’s Live Remuneration Survey, which it will launch in July.

“It will focus on live music performance income for artists – how much they’re paid per gig on average, how much they earn annually, the percentage of total income made up by live performance, the conditions surrounding being paid (payment arrangements with venues, bookers, managers etc, are they paid on time etc),” Collins tells TMN.

“It will be a partnership with a range of organisations so we are expecting this to reach over 100,000 music performers.”

The data will provide valuable insight for AMIN and the broader industry on how to support artists through the changing market model.

Another focus for AMIN is the production of the first ever industry-wide Contemporary Music Snapshot report.

It compiles important data and statistics on the health of the industry in a central location.

“The idea behind this is to support the industry through its advocacy work, to identify gaps in available research and data, to highlight current industry affairs and provide an annual overview of the national industry to better track progress,” says Collins.

“The live performance survey will feature as a key component of this report.”

In the latest Music SA structure, Lisa Bishop will continue as secretary. New members are Angela Samut representing QMusic, and Daniel Ballantyne representing MusicACT.

The previous chair, Joel Edmondson, served for two years before leaving his top role at QMusic to become executive director at Queensland Music Festival.