Music Tourism and Wales
Yesterday I was invited to say a few words at the Senedd as part of an event organised by the Assembly of Wales to mark the role of music in Welsh culture as part of St David‘s Day. Opening remarks were made by The Presiding Officer Elin Jones AM, and then a speech by Bethan Jenkins AM. I closed the talking before the music performances from Beaufort Male Choir, Kizzy Crawford, Aled Rheon and Danielle Lewis. After I spoke, two people asked if I could send or publish my words, as they were interested in the stats, so here, for them at least, is what I said :
Dydd Gwyl Dewi Hapus I Pawb.
I’m delighted to have been invited here tonight. It’s particularly timely as I spent time last week watching Senedd.tv and the evidence given to the Culture, Welsh Language and Communications Committee which is chaired by Bethan (Jenkins) — regarding Music Education in Wales. I found it fascinating. Music Education is a huge part of our music culture and infrastructure, yet I realised it’s the bit I rarely see.
The world I work in is, in the main, all about what comes outside of that. Music Festivals, Rock and Pop Concerts, Record Labels, Publishing, Music Industry Training and so forth.
It’s that first thing on the list which brings me here. Music Festivals. Myself and Huw Stephens set up Swn Festival in 2007 in Cardiff. We were inspired by trips to places like In The City in Manchester, SXSW in Austin, Texas, Oya Festival in Oslo, and Iceland Airwaves in Rekijavik. There were these amazing, dynamic festivals — big and small — in these towns and cities and we wanted something good to happen here in Cardiff, were we lived. So we made our own version of those festivals, built to the canvas of Cardiff and loaded heavily with music from Wales, and we called it Sŵn.
Huw and I established Sŵn not only to have something we thought was great on our doorstep, but also to bring people in to see how brilliant we thought Cardiff was, and to introduce them to our favourite new music from Wales. At that time we felt that new music in Wales needed more exposure, and more platforms, to be heard. As a result there’s always been a big part of our audience who travel in from further afield for the weekend of Sŵn Festival. This concept is called Music Tourism. It’s only in recent years that the true value of Music Tourism has become to be understood. In fact just last week I went to the first ever UK Music Tourism Conference, which bought together music industry delegates from Nashville, Canada, Germany, Amsterdam, France, Spain and Paraguay amongst many others, to discuss the value that music brings to towns, cities and countries. The research is staggering, and should be of excitement to us here in Wales, as data from the music industry body UK Music shows that Wales has the highest proportion of music tourists of anywhere in the UK. On average 38% of live music audiences in Wales are music tourists. 38%! That’s a huge number coming in especially for music concerts and festivals. How great is it that music is such a magnet for people to travel, and what a wonderful way in to our culture and our country.
And that statistic is really exciting for our artists in Wales too. Like I say, we wanted Sŵn to be a platform and showcase for new music in Wales. We wanted it to be a way for these brilliant musicians and artists to be heard. To help them find new audiences and develop their careers. To know they’re not just playing to the same faces all the time, and that a third of their audience have travelled in from elsewhere.
Because, the other exciting development is that it’s *elsewhere*, outside of Wales, that musicians will really build their careers. For a start, one in every six albums sold on Planet Earth comes from a UK artist. And as the move from physical records and CDs to digital consumption of music continues, so the barriers are coming down for artists. Music body Merlin recently reported that currently 40% of their members now make money from outside of their own home territory than inside it. That’s compared to just 16% in the purely physical days. And that’s because you can be an emerging artist like Estrons from Aberystwyth or Yan Hender from Llandudno or Chroma from Pontypridd and you can upload your music to the world in an instant. Take just one part of online music consumption — streaming. There’s 100 million subscribers to music streaming services at the moment, and the estimate is that that could become 200 Million by 2021, with that increase coming particular from emerging markets in Latin America, China, India, Russia and Africa. If you look outside of streaming, at other online consumption, the stats are incredible. In China alone they are already an estimated 502 million online music users. That’s over half a billion people!
It feels as though the digital age offers huge opportunity for the Land of Song to be heard across the global stage.. We should continue to support our artists at home with great platforms and networks such as Horizons — whose acts are performing tonight — and Rhondda Cynon Taff’s Young Promoters Network. We should nurture great locally built festivals that have a national reach, such as Festival Number 6, Green Man, Fire In The Mountain, The Good Life Experience and our I’d like to include own Sŵn Festival in that list too. We should continue to develop music industry training, such as the Forte Project and Barod schemes. I’m honoured to be able to work alongside these amazing musicians and music that brings the World to Wales and take Wales to the World.
Diolch
