Cathy Oates, Niriko McLure Tapped to Curate BIGSOUND Conference From 2025
This year’s BIGSOUND industry summit and showcase extravaganza marks the end of an era.
From the 2025 edition and into the future, veteran artist manager Cathy Oates (owner, Original Matters) and Niriko McLure (artist manager, and creative producer at Third Person Management) will take over duties as joint programmers of the BIGSOUND daytime conference, succeeding Tom Larkin, who completes his seven-year tenure.
The announcement is made on the eve of BIGSOUND 2024, which celebrates its official opening Monday, Sept. 2, with the programme proper kicking off Tuesday, Sept. 3 in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley.
“We are thrilled at BIGSOUND to welcome Niriko McLure and Cathy Oates to the team,” shared QMusic director of programming Mandi McIntyre.
“The role of the BIGSOUND Conference programmer has an unbroken legacy of creating timely and pivotal conversations which reflect and translate the heartbeat of the music industry on an annual basis.
“Never has this been more important, and as such, Cathy and Niriko’s combined extensive global experience and networks, along with deep roots planted in our local industry arrive at BIGSOUND at the perfect juncture,” adds McIntyre.
Oates, who relocated to Brisbane several years ago, has carved out a reputation as one of Australia’s leading artist managers. Along the way, she has guided the careers of Angus & Julia Stone, and Dean Lewis, and enjoyed stints with Sony Music, EMI Music and more recently Warner Music, and currently consults to an array of music companies both in Australia and the U.S.
McLure has soaked up more than a decade in senior positions in the music industry, across management, label and publishing, music tech and policy and event investment; led teams in Sydney, Los Angeles and London; and worked with such artists as Matt Corby and 5 Seconds of Summer.
Produced by QMusic, BIGSOUND 2024 welcomes such speakers at Tones & I, Kelis, Amyl and the Sniffers lead singer Amy Taylor, ABC head of music Emily Copeland, Mushroom Group as international director (labels) Korda Marshall, and Josh Simons, chief executive officer of Australia’s only ASX-listed music business, Vinyl Group, and Founder of Vampr.
Visit Bigsound.org.au for more.