Holy Whatever, It’s A Longer ILMC

Until this year, the opening session – recently chaired by Parmley and previously by Carl Leighton Pope – began on the Friday afternoon.

The Thursday has always been set aside for organisations holding their annual London meetings, such the ILMC Production Meeting and the Green Events & Innovations Conference.

“Over the last few years, we’ve noticed that delegates are arriving earlier than ever, so this move to kick things off properly on the Thursday night reflects that,” Parmley told Pollstar. The main opening session on the Friday will be four or five hours earlier than usual at 11 a.m. After buying the annual conference a year ago, Parmley still has more or less the same backroom team in place to help to run the event.

Alia Dann Swift and Lou Percival are still involved in the production, IQ editor Gordon Masson and Allan McGowan are still among the agenda consultants, and Chris Prosser is still director of marketing and press.

As the theme of this year’s 27th edition is “caped crusaders and wannabe superheroes,” delegates may see Parmley and Prosser dressed as Batman and Robin. It was never likely that Parmley would make a quantum leap (or a single bound) to radically change the event, given that any leveraged deal will be easier to service if ILMC continues to sell out its 1,000 or so capacity.

Parmley appears to be a promising successor. He’s spent four years writing for Audience magazine, two years editing The Hit Sheet, and more recently six years editing IQ, ILMC’s own magazine.

Another minor change with the hallmark of being an improvement at ILMC is the majority of sessions will be shortened to one hour, although some of the main room sessions will still run for 90 minutes.

The panel schedule and the names of the panelists are expected to be announced at the end of the month. Pollstar understands that Live Nation chief operating officer for global touring Arthur Fogel, who runs tours for Madonna, U2 and Lady Gaga, among others, will face Ed Bicknell for the Sunday morning interview slot. ILMC is at London’s Royal Garden Hotel March 6-8.