BIGSOUND 2022: Three Hot Topics From Day One

BIGSOUND is back with a bang, with hundreds of delegates from all sectors of Australia’s music industry descending on Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley for the first face-to-face event since pre-pandemic.

Of course, the impact of the pandemic was an overarching theme on Wednesday. Fresh on everyone’s minds, it was discussed many times: in keynote speeches, panel discussions and casual conversation.

Here are three of the other themes explored on Day One:

Technology and the Future of Music

Australian tech and creator success story Joan Westenberg kicked off the discussion of indie commerce and how artists can take advantage of the new creator economy, while Dr Jay Mogis explored the Metaverse and web3 with panellists including UNIFIED’s Jaddan Comerford, Serenade’s Katie Brown and artist VNCCII.

Paige X. Cho led a panel exploring the future of the Internet as it pertains to music marketing, with artist Nardean, That Aussie Music Guy creator Chris Palmer, TikTok’s Govind Sandhu and Chugg Music’s Andrew Stone providing real-world examples of how artists can make creation work for them.

Nardean explained that being a creator on top of being a creative and writing music was “exhausting” because creation was a full-time job in itself, but it came down to whether she wanted success or not.

Nardean has been selling NFTs and engaging fans by playing chess online with the NFT owners. “That’s a story; that person is going to remember me for life,” she said. “I’m playing chess anyway, I’m playing randoms anyway; I may as well play people who are also going to listen to my music.”

She is now exploring ways to integrate NFTs into real-world situations.

“What I really want to see is people buying an NFT and then coming to a show and scanning a QR code, and it gets them a little section, or it downloads a live camera set up in the green room or something.”

Everyone on the panel agreed that while nothing beats the live music experience, live streaming won’t be going anywhere, with Palmer pointing out that from an artist’s perspective it was ideal for real-time feedback on the creative process, as explored in Charli XCX’s documentary Alone Together.

Influencer marketing was also discussed, with Stone admitting companies like Chugg are employing 18 and 20-year-olds native to TikTok creation and current trends to help their artists create viral content. “It’s about finding the right creator for the right offering,” Sandhu explained.

“Quite often we can be skewed by numbers or what we’ve seen in the past, but Internet culture is changing daily. Who the right creator was yesterday may not be the right creator now.”

The ‘Me Too’ Movement

Nobody explained the ‘Me Too’ movement better than Tarana Burke. Named Time’s Person of the Year in 2017 with a group of prominent activists, Burke began the ‘Me Too’ movement back in 2006. Next month marks five years since the viral hashtag movement, and in her keynote, Burke encouraged people to push back on the question “What has ‘Me Too’ done in the past five years?” and instead ask, “What has ‘Me Too’ made possible?”

“Five years ago we could not have had a sustained international conversation about sexual violence,” Burke said, explaining the power of everyday people finding safety in one of the most dangerous places – the Internet.

“Twelve million people in 24 hours found the safety to say ‘Me Too’,” she said.

“The seeds of sexual violence are power and privilege,” she explained, adding that rather than be accountable for their actions and lose some power or privilege, perpetrators would rather deny their actions.

With the publication of the damning Raising Their Voices report of sexual harassment in the Australian music industry last week, ‘Me Too’ is a pertinent conversation to be having within the industry right now. “There is still more truth to tell, but the first person you have to tell the truth to is yourself,” Burke said, adding, “The more truth I told myself, the more freedom I had.”

Climate Change

Artists and activists came together for the morning panel How Soon is Now: How Climate Change is Impacting Australia’s Live Music Industry, which was followed by a screening of “Green is the New Black“, the documentary produced, directed and edited by In Hearts Wake’s Jake Taylor.

The film begins with a quote from Bono: “Music can change the world, because it can change people.” It’s partly a documentary of the band’s journey over the past five years, and partly an environmental message to music consumers and creators.

“In order to grow as a band, you need to tour as much as possible, put on a great show and sell as much merch as possible,” Taylor says in the film, which goes on to explore how bands can make smarter decisions in merch, packaging and touring options to lessen their effect on the environment.

In Hearts Wake was in the process of making “Kaliyuga” when the 2019/2020 bushfires began, and it became the band’s mission to completely carbon offset the album, employing consultant Grace Gallagher to help them offset the 26.5 tonnes of C02 created during the process. The band explores environmentally-friendly ways to keep their stage show immersive without the use of confetti cannons or plastic pool toys (RIP Patchy) and ways to package their product without the use of plastic, as well as sustainable touring practices any band can employ.