Introduction

The Industry Talks programme is an essential series of events for anyone seeking a career in the music industry. The idea for this programme came about through listening to young people in informal music making settings talk about their aspirations for the music that they create. In a lot of cases the passion was there, but the young musicians themselves had very few ideas as to how they can progress their musical creations and how they can get their music out there. Our Education and Outreach Officer Jordon Maynard-Daley had the idea of inviting music industry professionals to talk to the young people and share their personal experiences and journeys with them.

And thus The Industry Talks was born!

Context 

Working in partnership with City of Oxford College, OCM were able to run an series of Industry talks events on Campus and invite young people from the community to attend and network with the speakers and gain insight and advice. Each event was themed and included a roster of guest speakers sharing their personal experience on the topic of the night.

2013-2014 Industry Talks Programme

• Finding your path in the music industry
• Earning a living
• Women in Music
• From studio to shop shelf

The Story

Each of our events featured 3 - 4 guest speakers that would give a 15 minute presentation on their experiences, they would then take questions from the audience and offer their insights. We really wanted to embrace digital technology on this project so we created podcasts for our talks and used Skype as a way of engaging with speakers who were unable to travel to venue due to vast distances.   

Impact on Participants

Please see quotes

Next Steps

The Industry Talks events will return next academic year. Using a youth steering group we will strengthen our consultation with young people interested in this project to ensure that topics remain current and relevant to audience members. In the new academic year we want to push the boundaries as to what this project can achieve and look more into digital technology and social media to help spread the learning from the project. Stay tuned because the industry has not finished talking yet