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"So, here we are on the second day of the International Music Summit at the Hotel Fenicia Prestige. I didn’t think we could possibly have panels as strong as the first day but it happened. We had an amazing day today with the key topics being brands and the digital age.

First up was a key note speech by Andrew Keen, who is the author of a very controversial book ‘The Cult of the Amateur: How the Internet is Killing our culture’. Andrew delivered a truly impressive speech, very well delivered, articulate and above all, an incredibly controversial speech. He had members of the audience seething at times but once they heard his arguments, his visions; the audience came round to his ideas as he showed them great understanding of the situation this industry is in! What really came out of it though is that the electronic industry is not like any other industry - it has its own set of values that are working… As a community we are actually uniting in a very strong way and getting through the problems that the other industries are facing.

Andrew was also part of the digital panel alongside Layo (Layo & Bushwacka!), and representatives of DJ Download & Beatport plus the deputy editor of I-DJ Magazine. This was another hotly debated panel and Andrew threw a few spanners into the works there too.

In his own words, he likes to “throw a grenade into the audience” and he did that a few times! Jonas from Beatport delivered an astute and deep insight into the formation of the company and its vision for the future.

Matt Jagger from Naked Communications moderated a brands panel titled ‘Show Me The Money’ where representatives from Barcardi, Smirnoff and Sony Ericsson exchanged great insight into deals they are working on.

I sat on the panel myself and it was really interesting to see some of the deals that are available and how you can manage very creative ideas with branding.

Ben Turner’s example of Sunday Best’s collaboration with Vauxhall Corsa was particularly interesting, with Rob da Bank’s wife Josie redesigning their corporate ID.

I interviewed David Glick from Edge on ‘Innovations in Investment’. He went down incredibly well.

David talked about new ways in which you can invest into record labels or events, an extremely articulate individual who showed great vision of the future of the music business. He was inundated with delegates approaching him at the end of his talk with their business cards. A true testament to what this conference is all about. But then he does have a warchest of £40 million to spend in music!

A highlight of the day was the Soul Avengerz remixing the official IMS Anthem by Tom Middleton. He showed delegates how he creates dance music. He had the audience in fits of laughter whilst delivering an incredible showcase of his talent.

After Tom & Wayne have worked their magic it will be interesting to see which label succeeds in picking up this gem of a track. 

Mark Brown, head honcho of Cr2 Records, was the lucky DJ to be given the IMS anthem to play out for the very first time – it sounded superb.

Visit also:

• International Music Summit: Day 1, Pete Tong diary
  

• http://www.internationalmusicsummit.com