Music Conference News: Brighton Music Conference 2026 Announce Second Wave of Names
ADE Pro 2025: Navigating the Future of Electronic Music
ADE Pro stands as the definitive platform where the future of electronic music comes into sharp focus. The 2025 program has been meticulously crafted to help industry professionals navigate and thrive in an environment shaped by constant shifts, fierce competition, and transformative opportunities. This year’s agenda spans the exploration of the future of live performances, strategies for independent success, and pivotal discussions at the intersection of music and technology.
The rise of independent artists and labels is signaling a rapid power shift within the music landscape. In 2025, over half of the music consumed on major platforms is created by independent or unsigned artists. This trend highlights not only the growing influence of independent creators but also the unique challenges they face outside the traditional label system.
ADE Pro will serve as a nexus for the most influential voices in this evolving sector through dedicated keynotes, panels, and networking events focused on independent success. The program will delve into the essential tools, partnerships, and digital resources artists need to thrive. It will explore effective strategies for growing a loyal fan base and reaching key markets in an increasingly saturated industry.
Independent artists will learn how to leverage major social and streaming platforms to accelerate their growth and visibility, utilizing data-driven approaches and innovative marketing tactics. Additionally, discussions will cover emerging revenue streams, the nuances of sync licensing, advanced rights management techniques, and release strategies that operate effectively outside the traditional major-label framework.
Technology continues to redefine the electronic music landscape at an unprecedented pace, affecting how music is created, shared, and monetized. In 2025, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are profoundly reshaping every aspect of the music value chain, presenting both challenges and opportunities for artists and industry professionals.
ADE Pro will feature thought leaders from groundbreaking platforms, innovative music tech startups, and visionaries at the nexus of music and technology. These experts will explore the transformative tech trends propelling the industry forward. The conference will address how artists and professionals can harness AI and ML to enhance music creation, curation, and consumption, transforming potential threats into powerful tools for growth.
The sessions will also examine the impact of ever-evolving digital platforms and the emergence of new ones, providing strategies for staying ahead in a dynamic digital landscape. ADE Pro’s acclaimed Insider Knowledge series will offer key insights into today’s digital music ecosystems, guiding participants on how to effectively grow their fan bases and connect with ideal audiences through tech-driven solutions.
The live music sector is undergoing a pivotal transformation. In the wake of recent global disruptions, festivals and live events face significant pressure due to shifting fan behaviors, inflation-induced changes in spending patterns, and fierce industry competition. Many events worldwide grapple with cancellations, signaling the urgent need for the traditional festival model to evolve.
ADE Pro will bring together promoters from world-renowned festivals, club and venue owners, booking agents, seasoned industry professionals, and innovators to address these pressing issues. The program will investigate how concerts, clubs, and festivals can not only survive but thrive amid new economic and cultural realities.
Discussions will focus on strategies for festival and event organizers to adapt to rising costs and changing audience behaviors. This includes the potential shift toward smaller, niche boutique events and innovative approaches to reinvigorating large flagship festivals. The conference will also explore how independent event brands can compete with festival giants backed by large-scale investors, tackling challenges related to programming budgets, promotional reach, and market leverage.
By examining the elements behind the success of thriving festivals and events, ADE Pro will uncover what makes certain experiences resonate with contemporary audiences. The importance of cultivating strong, engaged communities will be highlighted as a cornerstone of sustainable success in the evolving live music landscape.
For those eager to immerse themselves in these transformative discussions, the ADE Pro Pass is available at discounted rates during the Early Bird sale. Act quickly, as these rates will increase soon, offering a limited-time opportunity to secure access to ADE Pro 2025 at the best value.
IMS Ibiza will return in 2026.
QUOTES OF THE DAY
“Where Africa is right now… it’s how I imagine dance music was at the start. It feels like something real and exciting and led by emotion and community. Those are the people we should all be learning from.” Dare Balogun, Cultural Strategist, Metallic
“Jungle is our hip hop. We made it, it’s a British thing and it’s lasted for decades and gone all around the world. We have to be so proud of that.” Krust
“Who gets to make music at the end of the day is not going to be supported from the beginning of their life. [When we talk about DEI] we’re talking about kids’ capacity to have a healthy and fulfilling life, and possibly a career in the arts.” softchaos
“A lot of major agencies… they don’t see club culture as valuable: it’s all about hard ticket festivals and building up fees and ticket data. They‘re not looking at grassroots or smaller venues as important.” Ellis Coles, Booker, fabric
“We’re the number one Latin House label in the world right now. That just comes from two guys who didn’t really know what they were doing – but believed in the sound.” HUGEL
“Everyone should have a mentee. If you’ve been in the industry for 10 years and you’re now a master at what you do, you should pass that on to the next generation.” Amy Jayne, Senior Label Services Manager, LabelWorx
“TikTok has been a huge driver of major label interest. But, at times, you’re seeing young artists getting signed off the back of TikTok who don’t actually know how to produce a full-length track. They just know how to make the 30-second clip.” Chris Goss, CEO / Co-founder, Hospital Records
“Coming to South London, it felt like utopia: the diversity of people, the representation. But as I moved from DIY promoting up through the echelons to the managerial, hidden regions of electronic music, I realised I was the only one [like me] in the room again.” Bradley Zero
“When [Dantiez] first got into DJing and said he wanted to make music, I wouldn’t let him in my studio. I told him to go and watch YouTube. But he was persistent and learnt, and we hit a moment when the beats never stopped in the house, so six or seven months in I realised he had this creative energy and started to take him seriously. He started reminding me of me back in the day.” Kevin Saunderson
“Diversity and inclusion is inherent in what we do, and even in our business model. Bottom line: a diverse workforce and diverse artist roster makes us more profitable.” Maria May, Music Agent, Creative Artists Agency
“I could never have envisioned when I started that I’d still be doing this 45–50 years later. Ultimately, I have so many different jobs because when I started, you couldn’t make a living just being a DJ.” Pete Tong
“I get people coming up to me and saying, ‘My mum used to rave to you,’ or ‘My dad used to rave to you.’ While that makes me feel really old, it makes me feel great that these parents are happy for their kids to go to d’n’b events and carry the torch on.” MC Chickaboo
Annually, IMS Ibiza presents a snapshot not only of the current state of the industry but also of the broader world, which is undergoing unprecedented rapid change. Two early sessions today witnessed esteemed industry leaders grappling with this transformation and attempting to establish new rules of engagement. The most noteworthy highlights of the second day are presented here.
First, AFEM’s session on Generative AI advocated for a new way to deal with what’s certainly been the most hyped new development in the world at large recently.
While the speakers were at pains to make it clear they weren’t enemies of AI as a tool for creativity, perhaps Alistair Webber, son of the composer Andrew Lloyd, summed it up:
“Over the last six months, in the UK and other territories, governments want to give AI companies carte blanche to scrape copyrighted music to train their models – by amending hundreds of years of copyright law. It’s completely outrageous.”
The session outlined not just the complexities of unpicking who’s owed what, but looked to chart a course forward, whether via AFEM’s forthcoming AI Principles or Inder Phull of KOR Protocol’s work with artists to innovate new – and equitable – ways for fans to engage with their music.
A few moments later in The Brave Space presented by HE.SHE.THEY. in partnership with One Of Us, we heard about another attempt to chart a course to a better and fairer industry. The Trans Inclusion Charter session featured cultural dynamos like HE.SHE.THEY.’s Sophia Kearney, Sashkia Menendez (driving force, with AFEM, behind the charter), and Boudica founder Samantha Tonghi – and it felt both vital and urgent, particularly the heartbreaking plea from artist softchaos.
“There are trans artists who are DJs being detained for doing their jobs because they were brave enough to change their gender markers,” they said. “They aren’t safe doing jobs that most people wouldn’t think twice about. What can we – you – in the music business, do to protect them?”
The day began on the Summit Stage - Indoor, with the management, and agency teams behind the rise of phenomenon John Summit’s rise to selling out Madison Square Garden; speakers Ben Shprits and Daisy Hoffman (Wasserman Music) and Holt Harmon and Parker Cohen (Metatone Management), delivered a masterclass in artist momentum and steering an extraordinary talent.
Later, in a fascinating recap of his new book, Selling The Night, author and creative Andy Crysell talked us through the history of brands involved in electronic music from Fiorucci in disco (and Ibiza) in the 70s, to Absolut joining the dots between queer and club culture, the dawn of youth marketing in the 90s, to the Red Bull Music Academy, to ‘Colonel Sanders’ playing a DJ set at a festival in Miami – before a chat with Ralf Lülsdorf of Deutsche Telekom / Electronic Beats, who have been backing electronic music culture now for 25 years.
Blessed by quite stunning weather, more and more delegates have been taking advantage of the new outdoor big screen to watch events in the Summit Stage - Indoor, while another new addition, the Favela Bar, has brought a carnival vibe to poolside, framed perfectly by the view over Cala Llonga Bay.
For sheer, reckless charisma, few speakers come close to Fat Tony. His contribution to the Crash and Burn, The Price of Success session had all the laughter and scandalous stories that you’d expect – but was also shot through with compassionate advice for artists and indeed anyone in the industry struggling to keep the candle burning at both ends.
The Silent Epidemic: Tinnitus, Hearing Loss & Listening Responsibly was another The Art of Areté session that struck a chord across the different generations of the industry. Beginning with moderator Seb Wheeler describing his own sudden hearing loss and accompanying tinnitus, and Āliyah Husna outlining her own struggle with an ear condition, the speakers not only outlined the immense scale of the issue, but practical steps that we can take to protect our hearing, from EMT surgeon Dr. James Schuster-Bruce and Jenine Civil from Ultimate Ears Pro.
Just how valuable our ears are was later fully demonstrated at From Stereo to 360 – New Immersive Experiences in Electronic Music, presented by L-Acoustics. L-Acoustics also presented today’s Networking Drinks, with DJ Hugo Heathcote.
The final session of the day on the Summit Stage: Indoor paired the unstoppable SHERELLE with DJ Flight for an intergenerational exchange that was full of insight and mutual respect – and of course touched on another huge theme of the Summit, Four Decades of Jungle and Drum ’n’ Bass. The first woman to host a national drum ’n’ bass show, Flight started DJing in 1997, when SHERELLE was six years old – and at times it felt like there were three generations represented, as Flight referenced her close connection with her first inspiration: OGs Kemistry and Storm. A conversation that ranged from Flight’s work on Windrush stories to their shared experience of the world of radio, and respecting and referencing the lineage of the music that has come before when producing their own music.
So it was a day that looked both backwards and forwards, that looked to the past to inform the future.
As Andy Crysell said: “Everyone now looks to their community to learn. Once you would never hear education mentioned in the same sentence as club culture. ‘Knowledge is power’ seems more relevant now than ever.”
QUOTES OF THE DAY
“There’s this idea that trans folk are somehow ‘new’. Nobody at this conference would have a job without the contributions of trans people to this industry; without people like Wendy Carlos, or the communities in Detroit and Chicago where queer and trans people first accepted this innovative new sound.” softchaos
“I’ve not yet heard a track created completely from scratch with AI that’s not utter shite. I find that quite reassuring.” Alastair Webber, CEO & Co-Founder, The Other Songs
“When I was really young I had VH1 and MTV to watch. I was enamoured, but also scared, of The Prodigy’s Firestarter, and I genuinely thought Daft Punk were a cartoon.” SHERELLE
“Brands have been involved in club culture for a long time. Back in the 1940s, Pepsi was sponsoring jazz dance parties in Harlem. In the late 70s and the disco boom, though, things really stepped up a level. Andy Crysell
“Have you ever heard an artist win an award and thank the publisher? No, but that’s not why we do it. We do it to help songwriters create and make a living out of it.” David Ventura, President / Co-Managing Director, Sony Music Publishing
“Music is the best drug in the world. You don’t need anything else as a DJ. Just get up there and do your job. I’ve played clean and been gurning away like a loon with excitement.” Fat Tony
“With the current political climate, it’s more important than ever that allies [of the trans community] are vocal. Being silent, being neutral, is not an option anymore.” Samantha Togni, Founder, Boudica
“The audience for drum ‘n’ bass is very different to everyone else. The enthusiasm of the people who love the music; they buy tickets so quickly, they love the music so much. It’s huge – but still so DIY and independent.” Duncan King, Head of Festivals and Partnerships, Skiddle
“When I first arrived in Ibiza as a young promoter, the thing that struck me was the spirit of the island. I arrived in ’79 and saw in the clubs something I’d never seen before. You could be a millionaire or a poor person sharing the dancefloor and feeling the spirit of the island." Pino Saglioco, Live Nation Spain President
“Authenticity will always win in the long run. Deviation [Benji’s club night], I think we had 70 people at the first one and we were happy if we made 100 quid a party in the first year, but now it’s grown to be something that’s influential and totally looks after itself. Authenticity and staying true to yourself always wins the long game.” Benji B
“It’s so important to respect the origins and foundations. Without those people doing what they were doing, we wouldn’t be doing what we are doing. Support new music and innovations – but pay homage to what came before.” DJ Flight
Summary: The second day of IMS Ibiza highlighted key industry discussions, including AFEM’s session on Generative AI, where concerns were raised about copyright laws and AI’s impact on creativity, with Alastair Webber criticizing governments’ leniency towards AI companies. The Trans Inclusion Charter session, led by HE.SHE.THEY. and One Of Us, emphasized the urgent need for industry support for trans artists facing discrimination. Insights into artist growth were shared through the journey of John Summit’s rise, while Andy Crysell explored the deep-rooted relationship between brands and electronic music. Mental health and wellbeing were addressed in "Crash and Burn" with Fat Tony offering candid advice, and "The Silent Epidemic" focused on hearing health across generations. The day culminated in an intergenerational dialogue between SHERELLE and DJ Flight, celebrating four decades of jungle and drum 'n' bass, underscoring the importance of respecting musical heritage while embracing future innovations.
“The bond across generations is principles and ethics,” he said, as he looked for the shared values that link countries, ages and scenes. “What are you doing to expand the possibilities of electronic music?” he asked the audience. “That’s how we pass the torch to new generations.”
“Every initiative that makes it easier to live also makes it easier to create. A lot of government creative policy is focused on the arts, but if rent is too high, that will have a negative impact on creativity.” Elijah
“People talk about the gatekeepers having all gone. They haven’t, they’ve just been replaced by a new gatekeeper: the algorithm.” Mark Mulligan, MIDiA Research
“I owe my entire career as a DJ to radio. It goes beyond just the broadcasting. It provides this bridge between the real world and the online world. It provides connection.” Jaguar
“Afro house means I get to express myself in my most authentic way to the world: without changing myself.” Shimza
“I think many Spanish artists have been lazy. They haven’t taken the risk to go outside of their own country and push their careers. It’s all about attitude and networking. That’s why Paco Osuna has done so well — because he was focused.” Brian Cross, Live Nation Spain
“As artists we’re sponges. Wherever I’m lucky enough to travel, I make sure I go to local club nights, local record shops, try and meet local DJs in the studio, and that broadens my sound and my curation skills. I take inspiration from the noise and find the thing I want to share in the noise.” Chloé Caillet
“People want to buy an experience now rather than just a line-up. A brand like Elrow has shown you can create a brand and experience that’s not about a headliner.” Alex Montoya, Agent & Promoter, Analog Agency
“I think the next generation has to have its own ambition. They need to focus on the music and stick to their guns. They need to worry less about Instagram numbers and what everyone already likes, and push forward with the sounds that they believe in.” Martín Ferrer Vega, Amnesia
“I saw how successful Mochakk was on TikTok and Instagram. But when he then sent me 50 tracks, I knew that we had something real.” David De Valera, Founder & CEO / Director, Spike Management / Circulate
“You learn a lot being a manager about things you never thought you would… geography, immigration, divorce law!” Cristiana Votta, Manager, Alegria Agency
“I think a revelation for me was realising that I wasn't actually the boss in the relationship. All the best artists I’ve worked with know exactly what they want. They might be wrong… but you have to trust them while still having a voice and giving support.” Garry Blackburn, Founder/CEO, Anglo Management
“We’re the pioneers of this thing, we are the voice of this thing. Why would someone else tell us how this sound can be? We have the leverage to dictate where the sound is going. For us to limit where that sound would go is wrong. The canvas is clear: we can explore as much as we can without any fear or doubt.” Shimza
“We love supporting the next generation of talent and helping them on their career journey” says BMC founder Billy Mauseth. "We always wanted to create an accessible event that everyone can enjoy and feel welcome. BMC is like a family, with a relaxed and friendly vibe where everyone can come together to learn, be inspired, network and enjoy amazing music and DJ sets.”
Duncan King, Head of New Business at Skiddle says: "Skiddle is proud to be the headline sponsor of the inaugural ‘Health and Wellbeing Theatre’ at this year’s BMC. As a dedicated advocate for improving health and wellbeing awareness within the industry, we are committed to fostering open conversations, promoting better support and practices, and shining a spotlight on the incredible individuals and organisations making a difference in this space."
Billy Mauseth adds: “With first-hand experience of friends and colleagues struggling with their health and addiction issues, I felt it was really important to do more on this topic at BMC. We’re extremely grateful for the support from Skiddle in making this happen this year.”
FIRST 100 SPEAKERS