How to get the most out of ACCES as an artist

Update your promotional assets

It's very important that your electronic press kit (EPK) is up to date. This means that you need to:

• Include a well-written biography that gives the reader a good understanding of who you are as an artist, i.e. what you sound like, the key messages in your music, milestone career achievements, and, potentially, what the future holds.
• Share strong media or industry quotes. Having a media platform or a music industry quote about your live performance, LP/EP release, videos or overall artistry is one of the best ways to promote your music. This is because media don't usually have a vested interest in your music and are not obliged to write positively, which gives their words extra weight if favourable.
• Update your photos. Music industry players are not solely focused on music but also on an artist's image. Having a diverse range of promotional photos that you can include in your EPK is vital in furthering your career.

Photo Dos 

• Include photos that show your artistry and personality.
• Have both portrait and landscape photos in colour as well as black and white.
• Use different locations and outfits, refrain from busy backgrounds.
• Consider image sizes for different social media platforms when cropping your photos.
• Credit the photographer. 

Photo Don’ts

• Include photos with old band members.
• Include only one-dimensional photos, i.e. all black and white.

• Include links to your website, social media, YouTube, Bandcamp and SoundCloud as well as streaming platforms like Spotify, Deezer, iTunes etc.
• Update your contact information to ensure your management and booking agency details are included.
• Ensure that the file size of your EPK will not bounce back when sent via email. It's therefore a good idea to keep your EPK under 10MB, or 5MB if you want to be absolutely safe.
• Update your website. Take time to keep your website up-to-date with all key information. A good method is to update your website and EPK at the same time.
• Update your social media. You should be active on the social media platforms you’ve chosen to use. Doing so not only keeps your fans engaged but also shows the music industry that you are active and engaged.
• Update your technical rider. Having a clear and up-to-date stage plot and technical rider shows that you're professional and that you understand what is needed from a production perspective to put on your best performance.
• Use a cloud storage platform such as Dropbox or Google Drive to store all your promotional, technical and travel assets. Nobody has unlimited storage in their inbox and sending emails with large attachments can easily bounce back.

Suggested information on cloud:

• Audio: MP3 and WAV versions of your released material.
• Biography and EPK.
• Photos: Include hi-res and low-res versions of your photos.
• Videos: Include versions of your official and live videos.
• Technical rider.
• Hospitality rider.
• Tour party list including roles and dietary requirements.
• Travel documents (passports).

Identify how attending a conference can help you achieve your goals

Musician are cultural entrepreneurs who should have short-term and long-term plans for their career. It's best to identify what you're aiming to achieve when attending a music conference:

• Live performance opportunities (gigs, festivals or tours).
• Management.
• Booking agent.
• Record label.
• Distribution.
• Publishing.
• Networking opportunities.
• To listen and learn from experienced professionals.

Research the music industry

The best music conferences, like ACCES, list the delegates who will be attending the conference. Together with the knowledge of the business you are aiming to achieve from the conference, you can now start to make a shortlist of who you aim to connect with prior and during the trade event. It's important that you read about the music festivals, booking agents, record labels and artist management companies at the conference in order to have an idea about their mission/goal, the type of artists they work with and the kind of shows they produce.

Contact the music industry prior to the conference 

Take time to contact your shortlisted delegates personally about two weeks before the start to the conference to introduce yourself, invite them to your showcase (if you are playing) and to set up a meeting. 

Dos

• Do your research.
• Contact via email or the online platform provided by the conference.
• Send a short, personalised email introducing yourself and what you do.
• Invite them to your showcase concert (if you are playing).
• Include a short biography with one or two short press quotes.
• Include links to YouTube videos (official and live videos).
• Include links to download your LP/EPs, photos and videos from a cloud.
• Set up a meeting.

Don’ts

• Contact all delegates in attendance. They will receive many emails and if your email looks like a generic “hello all, I am amazing” then they will skip over it.
• Contact music industry players whose work doesn’t match yours, i.e. if you're a traditional group and the music festival books electronic music – you are wasting your and their time.
• Include large files as attachments, i.e. photos, videos and MP3s should be sent via a cloud.

What to bring

Some music industry professionals have embraced the digital age, so they would be happy to receive everything via email to download and not have to carry business cards, flyers, vinyl, CDs and flash drives back home. Others, however, will be more than happy to receive physical material from you. It's therefore prudent to keep everyone happy by having everything stored in a cloud and bring a small number of physical copies of your music or promotional assets.

Also, rest up ahead of the conference and bring positive energy and comfortable shoes. Trade conferences involve long days and nights. See you at ACCES 2018!

Jess White is the founder of Akum Agency. 

About ACCES

ACCES is a pan-African event for music industry players to exchange ideas, discover new talent and create business linkages. ACCES is held in a different African city every year, attracting active music industry players from across the globe.

ACCES is organised by the Music In Africa Foundation, a non-profit and pan-African organisation, in partnership with Siemens Stiftung, Goethe-Institut, Alliance Francaise, Kenya’s Permanent Presidential Music Commission (PPMC), MagicalKenya and the Kenya Cultural Centre. 

For more information, including registration and sponsorship opportunities, visit the ACCES website or download the ACCES 2018 brochure here.