Tallinn Tops For Hospitality

There are now so many European showcase festivals that The Great Escape – the UK one held in Brighton – has now started giving an award for the one with the best hospitality, which this year went to Tallinn Music Week.

The event staged in the Estonian capital – which includes an opening welcome from President Toomas Hendrick Ilves – came out ahead of Germany’s Reeperbahn Campus and Berlin Music Week, Austria’s Waves Vienna and The Great Escape itself.

“As well as championing great new music, the best showcase festivals also champion their host cities, and Tallinn Music Week has been particularly good at raising the profile of Estonia and its capital within the global music industry,” said TGE co-founder and Glastonbury Festival talent booker Martin Elbourne. TMW has previously won similar awards at TGE, including Best New Showcase Festival in 2012 and Best Conference Hotel, which last year went to the city’s Nordic Hotel Forum.

Former Pink Floyd manager and regular TMW speaker Peter Jenner said: “Tallinn was built as a trading post, where East and West could meet, that is what Tallinn Music Week is doing now for the music industry. “The range of music is wide, the production, sound and lights at the venues are terrific, and reflect the quality of the music. The concerts in the book-shops and galleries open the festival for the whole town – a terrific idea.” The 2015 edition of Tallinn Music Week is March 26-28.