MINSK, 3 March (BelTA) – The Colisium international music industry conference was held in Minsk on 1-2 March, BelTA has learnt.

Colisium is a Russian version of popular international music forums that can be organized in different formats: from exhibition to conference or seminar. In fact, this is an independent platform expected to gather musicians at the right time and place and to help find and solve particular problems, for example, regarding the organization of tours and booking of performers. The Director General of the conference Vladimir Kravchenko said at the opening ceremony of the forum that Colisium features a wide range of tasks that should be discussed and solved with the help of experience of other countries.

The main topics of the conference included organization of large-scale festivals and club concerts, management and promotion of performing artists, ticketing technologies, digital music releases, crowdfunding, financing of events, copyright, and event insurance.

Education was among the main topics of the conference. According to Executive Director of the event Sergei Babich, people abroad say that those who work in music industry are poorly educated as very few of them have industry-specific education. “Many people in music industry become professionals learning from their own mistakes. We want to change this trend. We want those who are involved in the organization of concerts, tours, and festivals to become specialists in some 5-10 years,” he said.

The forum featured a special section dedicated to the opportunities for music management education in Belarus and the experience in the creation of individual education projects in Saint Petersburg and Moscow. The section provided an opportunity to talk to experts from all the areas of music industry.

Colisium was expected to help musicians find a producer or a concert director and learn more about the copyright and the stages of product promotion: from the record of a track to the organization of tours.

Promoters, art directors, and owners of clubs had an opportunity to get acquainted with concert agencies of the CIS countries, the United Kingdom, the USA, Japan, China, Germany, and Finland.

Generally, the conference features presentations by experienced promoters, representatives of famous record labels, and program directors of radio and TV channels. The guests of the forum included outstanding musicians and critics.

Colisium has been held in Russia for seven years. It features formats of events similar to those presented by its European, American, and Asian partners. In 2014 the conference is held in five cities of the CIS: Saint Petersburg, Minsk, Kyiv, Almaty, and Moscow.

Minsk hosted the international music industry forum on 1-2 March.