Last year the hub worked with the MusicLeader team, carrying out research amongst its 11 000 members, and providing recommendations for the strategic development of the service. Since then, MusicLeader, which exists to raise the quality, value and impact of music leadership in the UK, has extended its network into East Anglia and the South East, so that for the first time ever it can provide a truly national resource.

Our research provided information about MusicLeader’s members, their needs, ambitions and the challanges they believed they face and will face in the future. It also consulted them around how they thought that MusicLeader could most usefully provide support in the future, testing this with key figures in the music education sector, and providing recommendations for future programme development, communications and operations.

Informed by this research, MusicLeader has published a new on- and off-line brochure, describing the information, advice and guidance, training and networking opportunities and online resources it provides, and giving useful information about how all those involved in young people’s music making can access them. It looks great (!), and is packed with really useful information. If you’re involved in this kind of work, or know someone who is, then do check it out and get in touch with the MusicLeader team in your region; they’re a great bunch, they really know their stuff and can connect you to lots more free advice, training and guidance.

Over the summer, the hub will be working with EFDSS to explore how best the organisation can support the development of new work and emerging talent in the folk music sector.

EFDSS aims to “nourish artistic innovation and excellence and develop the reach of English folk and new acoustic music in the UK and its profile internationally”, and we’ll be looking in particular at how it can support artists to build and connect with new live audiences. Get in touch if you’d like to find out more, or tell us what you think.

In the meantime, check out Folk Rising, a three-part concert series sampling the freshest, undiscovered and at times radical UK folk music, produced by EFDSS and the most excellent The Magpie’s Nest. The future sound of folk…today.

Arts Council England and British Council have published Supporting UK Musicians Abroad, a summary of research carried out by the hub last year, which provided recommendations for how the two organisations could work together more effectively to maximise the impact and benefit of their support for musicians and music organisations wishing to develop their work internationally.

In arriving at our recommendations, we mapped the support currently available to those musicians and other music professionals in England working, or wishing to work, internationally, and identified where the needs of such individuals and organisations are currently unmet.

the hub’s findings have been welcomed by both organisations, and they have already informed the new Memorandum of Understanding between the Arts Council and British Council and the Arts Council’s consultation document Achieving great art for everyone. On a practical level, the two commissioning organisations have also begun work in response to some of our recommendations, for example the suggestion of a more ‘joined up’ approach to strategic planning, showcasing in the UK and overseas, online intelligence and clearer communication of our international priorities. Meanwhile, recommendations relating to touring, internal professional development, evaluation and lobbying and advocacy will inform future developments.

You can find a copy of the executive summary, our mapping and gapping analysis of the current infrastructure in England and contextual information about the commissioning partners, along with their joint response to our research, here.

Following initial consultation carried out by the hub last year, the Mayor of London has launched Making Music Matter, his music education strategy for London 2010-12. Published earlier this month, just over a year after the first ever Mayor’s Music Education Summit which the hub also produced and which kicked off the consultation process, the resulting programme includes: a new £100K fund for music education in the capital, to seed fund partnerships between local authority music services and orchestras and ensembles in the city; an audit of music education provision across London boroughs; an annual Rhythm of London event; a Rhythm of London website, signposting musical opportunities for young people, teachers and the general public; events and publications to support teacher development; advocacy to funders and government, and regular consultation with young people, teachers, parents and music education providers. You can download the full document here.

The organisation Sound Connections have launched an online survey that looks at the way young people ‘do music’ in London. The survey is live online until the morning of Monday, March 17th.

If you are a young person or work with young people, you could help out. You can access the survey by clicking here or visiting the Sound Connections site. All who take part in the survey will have the chance to enter into a prize draw with 3 Amazon or iTunes vouchers worth £50.

The idea of the survey is to gather research that will help shape future youth music projects, benefiting young people all over London. So remember kids, you’ve got to be in it to win it!

Earlier this year, the Arts Council England, Yorkshire and Yorkshire Forward commissioned the hub to produce a scoping study to determine the need for business support within the regional music industry, and how best this could be delivered.

As part of this project we invited music entrepreneurs to take part in a region-wide survey and to help us work up our recommendations for how the two agencies could best support music businesses in the region. We had a great response, and delivered our full report to the Arts Council and Yorkshire Forward at the end of the summer.

In light of the research, ACE and Yorkshire Forward are currently considering how best they can support the region’s buzzing music scene. As part of this, Yorkshire Forward is currently working with the new Business Link provider, which will broker relationships between creative businesses and specialist business support providers from April 2008. The two agencies also decided to publish our main findings at this point, so that they can share them with music businesses, entrepreneurs and other business support agencies across the region.

In response, we have put together a summary report, Yorkshire Music: a report into business growth needs and ambitions of the region’s music industry, which can be viewed at http://www.thehubuk.com/files/Yorkshire-Music-Report.pdf.

For any additional information regarding this project, please send an email to: julia@thehubuk.com

Festival Update
We are pleased to inform you that getmytickets.co.uk is now well into its three week ‘Dummy Festival Season’. This will run until January 9th, 2008 enabling us to trial the site as if it were fully operational.

Working with five festivals from around the UK, we have populated getmytickets.co.uk with out-of-date or fake ticket information to give potential users a realistic idea of what the site will look like and how it will operate. The feedback we gain from this exercise will enable us to make any necessary tweaks or changes.

Alongside the five festivals, we have also been working in partnership with the Association of Festival Organisers (AFO) and the British Arts Festivals Association (BAFA) to bring you this online ticketing service for independent festivals across the UK.

Interested in getting involved?
The site has been set up to allow fake tickets to be purchased. If you would like to help us out by buying some (don’t worry, no money actually changes hands!), then please get in contact us via intern@thehubuk.com and we will supply you with further details on how to do this.

If you’d like any more information about the project, then do get in touch with Jenny Harris here at the hub: jenny@thehubuk.com or getmytickets.co.uk@gmail.com

the hub is leading a programme of consultation and research, funded by Arts Council England, into developing an online box office service and marketing training programme especially for voluntary sector festivals, to be launched in 2008. To do this we are working in partnership with the Association of Festival Organisers (AFO) and the British Arts Festivals Association (BAFA). Our aim is to provide for those who seek new or additional ticket outlets, a service which will increase sales and improve festivals’ ability to identify and reach bigger target audiences, either as a new ticket outlet or as in addition to existing outlets.

To help us to build a box office service and training programme that will be of real use to festival organisers, we are asking them to tell us about how they currently sell tickets. If you are a festival organiser, please do fill it in. It should only take you five minutes or so, and we promise won’t share with anyone else any of the information you give us. You can download a copy of it here, and email your completed questionnaire to us.

If you are involved in organizing more than one festival then it would be great if you could complete a questionnaire for each one.

If you’d like any more information about the project, then do get in touch with Jenny Harris here at the hub: jenny@thehubuk.com