This time of the year is the perfect excuse for too much mulled wine, cheesy thank you’s and the slightly nostalgic reminiscing of the past few months. We are looking back at a turbulent year with a lot of great things happening, and hope this newsletter will either let you smile (because you remember these exciting days together with us), or possibly pout a little because for some incomprehensible reason you missed out). Either way, lease feel invited to take a short walk with us down memory lane for the next few lines.
Founding into independent non-profit
But first of all, we want to say thank you to anyone who was part of MCN in 2022. This last year has been a bit challenging for the industry to say the least, but we are happy to say that we can really count on our network. Our members seem to have mastered the art of resilience and ongoing motivation like no others, and we are beyond grateful to be surrounded by such inspiring people.
We kicked this year off with nothing less than the official founding of MCN into an independent transnational non-profit organisation. After working under the umbrella of Hamburg Music for the last 5 years this was a bold and important step for us.
EMBTF
Following the founding, we did not hesitate to start new projects. Quickly touching on what we achieved together this year:
The first round of EMBTF is finished and the report is published! We even followed up with a new podcast format that is still in the making, so understand this as only the beginning… And if you haven’t done it by now, check out the final report and stay tuned for what's to come, because we are so excited to say that EMBTF Vol. II is in the making!
LEC
Another exciting project that centres on the artistic focus we have at MCN is the Link Up Euro Connection. Together with the 34 artists that participated, we held showcases in various member cities. These included Groningen, Manchester, Aarhus and Berlin. We also finished the final LEC Manual - read it here if you haven't already. LEC is here to stay.
EMPE
And for the third, big MCN project this year, we are currently knee-deep in the facilitation of EMPE - the European Music Policy Exchange. We started this project in partnership with the Center for Music Ecosystems at this year’s Reeperbahnfestival in Hamburg, and have continued with the other roundtables online. Collecting and processing the shared knowledge that is pouring out of these small-scale collaborations, we are writing a handbook that will be released during next year’s Tallinn Music Week and will be available to anyone interested.
New Encounters
Apart from the projects we realised with MCN directly, we also had a few other activities that are worth mentioning. Those were e.g. the festivals and conferences that were visited by Lena, the managing director of MCN. During Iceland Airwaves in Reykjavik in our member city Iceland, a roundtable and conferences participation in Prague and Brno in the Czech Republic, as well as during the Pin Conference in Skopje North Mazedonia, she either met old friends or made new ones. Great to see and meet you all and looking forward to seeing the new evolving out of these encounters! Phew, what a year! 2023 probably won't be any less exciting than this year and we are here for it! Enjoy the time off and recharge and we will see you next year!