Europact: European Arenas Association Announces Plans To Showcase Emerging Talent

The plan is to share performance opportunities for new artists across EAA membership venues. Participating arenas, as well as the budget of the self-funded pilot program will be announced separately. 

When questioned how the up-and-coming artists participating in Europact would be chosen, a EAA rep told Pollstar: “Each arena will identify its own talent and capacity to perform at other members venues – we are not prescriptive as to how talent is identified but there is a focus on unsigned talent in the first instance.

“Eventually we hope to put on a showcase of bands that have played across the pilot network.”

The association is working in partnership with the European Commission on this, which has been increasingly showing an interest in the European music sector over the past years.

The EAA states, it “is actively involved in policy making groups from the areas of both music and sport.”

John Langford, president of the EAA, commented: “The European Union is dedicating large amounts of resource to the European music sector in recognition of its talent potential and creative capacity and we are delighted to be able to offer our infrastructure and know-how in

order to support these efforts.”

Olivier Toth, CEO of the Rockhal in Luxemburg, said: “We have created Europact  in order to contribute to building a sustainable European talent pipeline and to encourage the distribution of new music across national borders. Our aim is for the initial pilot scheme to become an established and recognised industry platform able to offer opportunities to young artists for many years to come.”