the blog

Making gender equality in the music industry a reality…. What can we all do?

The music industry can look an awful lot like a man’s world, even in 2018. Fewer than 1 in 5 songwriters in the UK are female, just 1 in 6 labels are majority-owned by women, and fewer than a third of those working in the industry are female. Get to the upper echelons, and only […]Read More

Unity Theatre – HackStage Ideas Lab

Imagine the scene – 25 or so of the UK’s most curious and forward thinking theatre makers, creative technologists and technicians, gathered together at Unity Theatre, Liverpool for 3 days of plotting and conspiring, eating and drinking, thinking and doing. All in the name of exploring the next frontiers of live theatre, and how digital […]Read More

Make, Do & Bend – the title of our Ideas Lab, yes, but also a good philosophy

Imagine the scene – 25 or so of Europe’s most curious and forward thinking composers, musicians and creative technologists, gathered together at NESTA HQ for a ‘nothing’s impossible’ day of plotting and conspiring, eating and drinking, thinking and doing. All in the name of exploring the next frontiers of live performance, and how digital technology […]Read More

Get curious… Get Generous… Reflections from Venues Day Business Up, Be Inspired panel

Earlier this week I joined 300 other delegates at the Music Venue Trust’s second Venues Day, all of us enjoying the slightly weird experience of drinking tea in the Ministry of Sound bar at 10am on a Tuesday morning. And all of us clutching hot off the press copies of the GLA’s Rescue Plan for […]Read More

Phrased & Confused is back! And Liverpool-bound…

It’s been a while, but we’re delighted to say Phrased & Confused, our Spoken Word and Music project, is back this Autumn after a couple of years R&R! We’ve teamed up with our friends at Unity Theatre in Liverpool to curate a P&C-influenced season of the very best mix of spoken word and music around. […]Read More

The #OneDayer – A Storify Summary

[View the story “The OneDayer: Finance, Technology and the Future of Independent Music” on Storify]Read More

‘Fresh ideas… knowledge, greater understanding, confidence and new people’ – what musicians will get from The One Dayer

the hub’s One Dayer – Independent Music, Money & Tech takes place in Camden on 1 July. In her latest blog, the hub’s Director, Julia Payne, talks about why the event is a ‘must go to’ event for musicians, songwriters and composers working in beyond mainstream music – and what they can expect to get […]Read More

Them’s the breaks – could tax breaks help the independent music sector?

Last Friday, as part of our Joining the Dots programme, we turned our thoughts to tax and the independent music sector – and more specifically whether or not tax breaks might benefit musicians, promoters and producers working in independent music. For our – highly sparky –  hubchat, which came in the same week as the government […]Read More

Developing young audiences – Good Reads

Ahead of Takes One To Know One, our free one-hour web chat looking at how to work with young people to develop young audiences, we’ve rounded up some of our favourite content from the web looking at young audiences. We’ve been busy talking to young people at the Roundhouse in London and posting the results on our YouTube channel. […]Read More

Let’s make 2015 the year of the ‘fair play’ venue…

As some of you will know, the Musicians’ Union is one of the organisations supporting and funding us to deliver our Joining the Dots programme, which is all about finding ways to help all of us involved in independent music – musicians, venues, promoters, managers – make a living from the music we love. So, fresh […]Read More