Video Report: Looking East

Pollstar attended the first East European Music Conference (EEMC) in Sibiu, Romania July 27-29 to speak to live entertainment professionals from the region as well as the organizers of the conference, and capture some impressions of the event.

– East European Music Conference
Speakers from this year

Professionals from the European live scene as well as local and regional authorities and EU representatives made their way to the picturesque town of Sibiu to learn from each other.

It became clear in the discussions that East Europe still lacks a proper infrastructure and legal framework to operate events in a foolproof way – as the recent tragedies in Bucharest, the Colectiv and Bamboo club fires, showed quite plainly. Which is not to say that there are no standout promoters around, who are leading the way by pulling of highly professional events, such as ARTmania, Emagic and other.

Pollstar interviewed a few of them and included their answers in the video below.

ARTmania founder Codruta Vulcu, for example, established ARTmania Festival in Sibiu as well as Blaj aLive in Blaj, which are both well thought out events up to international production standards.

Vulcu is also the president of AROC, Romania’s promoters association, fighting for a clear legislation and good practice in the country. It was her idea to launch EEMC, after it became clear that it took more than a dialogue between the country’s promoters and the state authorities.

“We also need a public debate about it,” she told Pollstar, “which includes the authorities, the private sector and international experts who can transfer knowledge to the local market.”

To help with the curation of the conference program, she brought Ruud Berends on board, the founder of Networking Music and co-owner of the IFF, who has helped build numerous music conferences all over Europe, including Eurosonic Noorderslag in the Netherlands and Where’s the Music in Sweden.

Other professionals who shared some insights into the East European markets in this video include Matjaz Manzek (MENT Ljubljana, Slovenia), Beatrice Gabor (MaiNoi Association, Romania), Adrian Cretu (Music Travel Festival, Romania) and Guido Janssens, managing partner in Emagic.