ITC Panels - a sneak peek...

OK, to whet your appetite here's a little look at three of the key panels we'll be hosting at ITC this year - live, A&R and publishing, with more to follow over the next couple of days.

1: This town’s a different town today: a modern guide to A&R

Muff Winwood, one of the most respected and successful A&R executives of the past thirty years, moderates a panel of the new breed out there making their mark. With A&R budgets shrinking, more options for acts and more ways to discover new talent what does this mean for the modern A&R? And how are they rising to the challenge? Confirmed panellists include: James Roberts of Brightside Recordings, Jo Charrington of Epic Records, Alex Gilbert of 14th Floor Recordings and Matthew Rumbold of EMI.

2: Leaders of the free world: the publishers panel

Music publishers are taking an increasingly proactive role in signing, developing and breaking acts. But in a world where publishing advances cannot be measured purely against records sales and publishers have to do more, financing finished masters rather than demos and sometimes bank-rolling quasi-labels, how can publishers sign acts in a way that makes sense - both in terms of breaking new acts and making money? And how do the bands themselves cope in with this new world order? Confirmed panellists include Kenny McGoff of EMI, Mike McCormack of Universal, Richard Holley of Peer Music, Andy McQueen of Notting Hill Music, Caroline Elleray of BMG Music, Simon Aldridge of Sony ATV and Alan Pell of Stage Three Music.

3: After the gold rush: the changing face of agents

The music business is changing and the live business is booming, but how can the live agent keep pace with these changes and fend off those looking to muscle in on their territory? Sony BMG have set up a live agency, Universal has bought Helter Skelter through their purchase of Sanctuary, experiential marketing agencies are putting together live events for brands and sponsorship is becoming more integral to live performance all round. How does a savvy live agent stay one step ahead? Legendary live agent Carl Leighton-Pope poses the questions to a new generation of live agents. Confirmed panellists include: Steve Hogan of William Morris, Steve Zapp of ITB, Emma Banks of CAA and Angus Baskerville of 13 Artists.

Any thoughts, feel free to hit us back

ITC

Some ITC facts and figures to pass the time...

OK - here goes:

8 acts that started out at In The City have gone on to have a total of 17 UK No. 1 singles between them. In The City scored their first No. 1 in May 1996 with ‘Some Might Say’ by Oasis. The most recent was ‘When The Sun Goes Down’ by Arctic Monkeys in January 2006.

31 acts have collectively gained an impressive 144 UK Top 10 Singles. All in all there have been over 400 UK Top 40 Singles released by bands that have come through the In The City ranks, spending more than a whopping 1560 weeks on the UK Singles Chart. That’s 30 years!

To prove that acts who play In The City aren’t just all about having hit singles, 20 acts have together achieved 47 UK No. 1 Albums. Overall, there have been more than 100 UK Top 10 Albums.

In The City can lay claim to launching the careers of 19 Mercury Music Award nominees. These 19 acts have received a total of 28 nominations between them.

These nominations have resulted in 3 Winners of the Mercury Music Prize (Suede – 1993, Badly Drawn Boy – 2000, Arctic Monkeys – 2006).

13 acts have shared 34 Brit Awards between them. This includes the current holders of British Group (Arctic Monkeys), British Album (Arctic Monkeys), British Breakthrough Act (The Fratellis), British Live Act (Muse), International Breakthrough Act (Orson) and Outstanding Contribution to Music (Oasis).

Hey, if you're not going to blow your own trumpet who will?

In The City is pleased to announce the 2007 line-ups for our Xfm ITC Breakthrough nights. Two nights of the best just-signed bands in the UK playing for the listening pleasure of Xfm Manchester competition winners and our lucky, lucky delegates

Sunday 21st October sees Scouting For Girls, Figure 5 and New 1920 take to the stage of The Roadhouse - with The Wombats, The Courteeners and One Night Only sure to test the foundations on Monday 22nd

And don't forget, if you're not a delegate or a competition winner, you're fresh out of luck

So, to register for ITC 2007 or for more info as it happens go to the website and have a look around

ITC Keynotes - a sneak peak...

Now we know you’re a greedy bunch, so we’ll be letting slip our full list of keynotes over the next few weeks. But for now, to whet your appetite for ITC 2007, we thought we’d let you in on just a couple of the people we’re bringing over to Manchester this year to set the musical world to rights:

Daniel Miller, the founder of Mute Records - home to Depeche Mode, Erasure and Nick Cave – has agreed to a rare interview talking about his life and career.

David Enthoven and Tim Clark of IE Music, managers of one Mr Robbie Williams, talk live in conversation about themselves, their company and the need to change existing music industry business models.

And last but not least Sub Pop Records co-founder Jonathan Poneman will be speaking to music journalist Keith Cameron (NME, Q, Mojo, Guardian and others) about the legendary label’s glory years of grunge, its current position as home to some of America’s finest indie and his personal take on today’s music industry.

In addition, we’d like to let you know that this year Xfm has signed up as a key media partner of In The City 2007 and will be dedicating a major slice of airtime to the event. Also CokeMusic, The Coca-Cola Company’s European music initiative, has also teamed up with In The City Unsigned through their innovative CokeMusic program. And of course we’d like to welcome back The North West Development Agency and Manchester City Council as supporters of ITC.

Pretty impressive we think you’ll agree - though you just wait till we announce the rest of In The City's line up. And please, don't get us started on how good the bands are this year.

You'll just have to wait and see...

In The City needs YOU!

We are looking for volunteers who will be able to give their time to help us run proceedings in October. If you would like to be part of one of the official In The City gigs or parties, or join the conference team at the Midland Hotel, please email staff@inthecity.co.uk with some information about yourself and your availability from 19th to 22nd October.

Calling all fringe promoters

The deadline to get your listings into the ITC Live Guide is Friday 21st September.

Email all info (obviously including date, venue, door times, price and line-up) to Gavin Cooke

Demo competition now closed

Thanks to all bands and artists that sent in a demo to play at this year's ITC. Thousands of demos and one very tired postman later, the deadline has now passed.

For those of you who missed it and those who are unsuccessful, there may still be time to get a slot at one of the many great fringe events taking place around Manchester over ITC weekend.

And those of you who are successful? Expect a phonecall over the next week...

DEMO DEADLINE IS TODAY!!!!

At 5pm today (Friday 7th Sep) , the doors will be shut for 2007's batch of ITC bands, so if you've missed the deadline we're sorry, but we did warn you.

For those that did get their music to us in time, you've not long left to wait - as the bands picked will hear from ITC HQ by the end of next week.

So fingers crossed and all that...

ITC Site Forums Go Live!

Well it's all go at ITC Towers - and today brings the launch of our all-new delegates forums

When you register as a delegate you'll be given a log-in and password for the forums - where you can bitch, lie, cheat, slander and generally cause mayhem

Or not

Instead, to avoid the wrath of our in-house moderator - an evil and merciless beast at the best of times - it might be better to use it for the powers of good: discussing new music, chatting about plans for ITC and generally having a good old natter.

Plus this year we've a thread purely for arranging meetings over ITC itself - all password protected for delegates-only, so don't worry about your boss finding out you're chatting up a rival label...

But remember - we'll know

Blackmail: SUCH an ugly word isn't it?

ITC

The new ITC website goes live!

Well, don't say we never listen to you lot - and to prove it here's the brand spanking new ITC site

It should be just what the doctor ordered with full listings (both day and night) up soon, as well as a new message board for the delegates.

Plus, a special bit of kit from a brand new partner - we'll explain all soon...