Next week the first big event in European music business starts, Eurosonic in Groningen in the Netherlands. It’s a showcase event with seminars and workshops. During the last couple of years more and more showcase events pop up, all with similar outlines: festival at night, often at various locations, seminar/trade fair during daytime. You could have a full-time job all year though you wanted to visit them all, and still would have to miss some!
All the events work with keynote speakers. Successful people from the music business tell you about their career, about how they got into the job, who it was to be/work with the famous band, and how great it is to be successful and famous. They tell us so we can learn from it, I thought. And I never learned much. Too much of the stories are about getting lucky.
At the office I have a postcard with the text: “Don’t walk in footsteps of the masters. Search what they were searching for.” This week I suddenly made the connection with keynote speeches.
All the keynotes tell you about the footsteps of the masters. And that was what I was listening to all the time, to come to the conclusion that I don’t learn much from it. Some keynote speakers also mention what they are searching for. And if not, you can often read it between the lines. Next time at keynote speeches, I’ll listen to what’s in between the lines, I’ll try to figure out what they were searching for. Listening to keynotes this way will be far more interesting, I’m sure!