HOW Music - Launch Event

The HOW Music collective brought together some brilliant music industry people and performers for a day of workshops, talks and one to one advice, in a bid to start making the music industry more diverse, and redress the underrepresentation of women in music. Held at Red Bull Studios in London, participants ranged from up and coming musicians to bands with a buzz around them, wanting to move up to the next level, and people wanting to work on the business side of things.

Clive Rich, Ruth Barnes, Claire Southwick

Featuring an amazing line up of music blog editors, radio presenters, label and festival founders, and leading PR and business gurus, the event aimed to ‘give people the tools they need to overcome some of the challenges they may face, such as affordable access to training and experts, access to a state of the art studio, tapping into networks and mentoring’.

This translated into hands on studio and DJ training, Q&A’s with the likes of Fiona Stewart owner of Green Man Festival, Sam Wolfson editor of Noisey UK, and Sean Adams editor of Drowned in Sound, a publishing session with synch agent and music supervisor Amy Ashworth, individual PR advice from Laura Martin founder of Real Life PR, and much much more.

One of the top sessions we saw was ‘Negotiating Any Deal’, which was a real eye-opener. Music Industry dealmakers Clive Rich, and Tom Stevenson, gave valuable insights into the psychology, language, and planning needed when negotiating.

Some of the top tips were - to ask clearly for what you want, only give one good reason, and that how you say something is as important as what you say. Clive and his team also put on specialist events for women in business.

Claire Southwick of Transgressive Producers talked about her own experience of making deals. While everyone agreed that face to face deal-making is always better than emails, where you do need to use email, Claire had tips for building a rapport, and even finding a chatty way of calling people out for rude behaviour.

V V Brown, Pips Taylor

V V Brown was interviewed by TV presenter and DJ Pips Taylor and gave a fascinating account of her journey from being in a punk band to being tipped as the next big thing in pop, then wresting back creative control and starting her own label. Her advice included taking time to discover yourself and your identity, be nice to people as people don’t forget things in the industry, and make sure you understand the business.

Radio presenter and music guru Ruth Barnes had begun the day by inviting people to talk to her about radio - she presents The Other Woman show on Amazing Radio, which is the UK’s only all-female new music playlist. She featured in some of the sessions, and later wrapped up the thought-provoking day, introducing some of the DJs and musicians.

Hannah Lou Clark

The event finished with a great performance from Hannah Lou Clark and some networking that gave people a chance to talk, swap music and more.