Fast Forward 2016: In Praise of Positive Thinking

Conferences. I’ve attended a good few in my time, and they often carry similar traits: high numbers of attendees, many panels… and often quite a lot of moaning. In fact, with the music industry still suffering what we might conservatively call “a bit of a tough time”, it can often be quite hard discuss the state of things without it turning into one long grumble about where it has all gone wrong.

For that reason then, the inaugural Fast Forward conference in Amsterdam this last Thursday and Friday came as a massive breath of fresh air. Consisting entirely of a relatively small number of attendees (around 120) under the age of 35 and with a very balanced cross-section of attendees in terms of country, gender and indeed role (including artists, it is worth pointing out), the conference aimed to focus not on what’s going wrong now, but what the future could hold if we dare to think big.

So here’s the thing: right now, you have the current status quo. It is there, it is established. But then you have the future — and for all our cynicism, we should not presume that the future is written in stone. It isn’t: much can change, and this is perhaps where Fast Forward represents a powerful force. (I use the present tense on the basis the event will return next year and hopefully for many more to come.)

Put simply, more people need to get together to discuss what we could do to improve the music business. “Ah…”, a cynic may reply, “but these are not the powerbrokers discussing this. They won’t make any difference.” And history might prove you right. But that is not the point; this about planting those seeds of ideas in the minds of people who could well prove in time to be the next generation of powerbrokers, be that successful artists, label heads, marketing people, tech company CEOs etc.

Blockchain might be an excellent case in point here. It was discussed at some length at Fast Forward, with Benji from Pledge Music doing an excellent job of explaining how it could work but most importantly what we stood to gain from the adoption of such a setup. Will it come to pass? It is up for debate on the basis so many stakeholders will seek to protect their own established models, but again, this may be missing the point.

As Lara Baker from AIM pointed out at the event, it was a good few years ago that thousands of indie labels signed a Fair Digital Deals declaration which pledged to ensure artists were treated fairly around streaming media services and any deals involving them. Cut to 2016 and this, along with a slow burn of pressure from managers and artists (among others), has led to both Sony and Warners now publicly stating for the first time that in the event of Spotify (or indeed other services in which they hold shares) being sold, the windfall of cash received will be shared with their artists.

My point here is seeding these ideas and slowly-but-constantly pushing those might well ensure that in time the music business finds better ways to work, in which more money is made for all, artists get greater transparency and where the business reverses a relatively consistent state of decline.

What was refreshing to see at Fast Foward was a solid degree of pragmatism. Not companies with sales pitches, nor blind acceptance of models that might be presented as “the next big thing”; just a clear and intelligent of appraisal of what is there now and what could be there in the future to better service the artists and their fans.

Perhaps my main takeaway from Fast Forward 2016 was that in fact one shouldn’t just write off new ideas saying “that won’t happen”. These ideas should all be considered on their merits. With a blank slate, could they work? If so, what would that mean for artsts, fans and our industry? What are the barriers here? Is that something worth fighting for? One thing is for sure: based on that conference, there are certainly plenty of people out there savvy enough to make a better future a reality given half a chance.

Let’s not look at the present a grumble about what’s wrong. Let’s instead ask “where do we want to be?” and then set about figuring out how to make that a reality.