News

2024 New Year’s Message From Music Business Association President Portia Sabin

Check out this special message from Music Business Association President, Portia Sabin with updates about everything we’re working on in 2024, including our inaugural Trust & Safety In Music Symposium, Music Biz 2024 conference programming & off-site events, the Spring 2024 Common Ground Webinar Series, our new Music Biz Events app, upcoming changes to our website & socials, and more!

Begin video transcript:

Hi everyone — Portia Sabin, President of the Music Business Association here to wish you a happy new year! 

2023 was a fabulous year for the association, which saw us:

  • welcome more than 2,300 industry professionals from over 30 countries for Music Biz 2023 last May;
  • add 102 new members to our global community of music companies;
  • feature more than 30 different companies across all of our thought leadership content (that includes our Common Ground Webinar Series, The Future of What Podcast, and Keeping Tempo blog);
  • and visit music industry communities in Atlanta, Portland, Memphis, Huntsville and Miami in the first full year of our Music Biz ​Roadshow program.

And it looks like 2024 is going to be even better! 

We are kicking things off today (Jan. 9th, 2024) with our first-ever Trust & Safety In Music Symposium, co-hosted by Downtown Music at NYU! It’s part of an important industry-wide discussion we started early last year when we created our Spin Fraud Task Force, and we’re proud to bring together reps from more than 20 companies at today’s event to keep the conversation going.

We’ve also listened to your feedback and will be making some changes to our Annual Music Biz Conference in 2024 to help make the attendee experience even better:

  • First off, we’ll be starting educational programming later on the afternoon of Monday, May 13th, to help accommodate folks looking to avoid traveling on Mother’s Day.
  • Programming will take place from 10am to 5pm on Tuesday, May 14th through Thursday, May 16th to allow for additional networking time in the mornings and evenings. That means our Thursday schedule will be a little busier than usual, so make sure to look at our program when it is released in February before booking your flight home.
  • We’ve limited the number of scheduled events that fall outside the 10-5 timeframe, with the exception of our Welcome Bash, Vevo Cocktail Party, and the Bizzy Awards dinner & after-party, giving you more time to plan off-site events that do not overlap the official Conference schedule.
  • We do ask that you remain conscious when planning your meetings, mixers and parties so they do not overlap with our officially scheduled events. Ultimately, this will help boost attendance at your off-site events!

To best meet the needs of our member community, we’re also making changes to our website. We’ll be streamlining the content on our website to make sure members and event attendees get all the important event & association info they need, and will be sharing news from around our member community exclusively on our social channels.

Starting this year, the Common Ground Webinar Series will be hosted on the Webex platform, which we use now for the virtual parts of the Annual Music Biz Conference.

Finally, we’ve got exciting plans for future Music Biz Roadshow events across the country, so stay tuned!

As always, if you have any feedback or ideas on how we can help you make the most of your Association membership or your time at our events, please reach out — our staff is always here to help! Here’s to a great 2024!