Producer Eddie Kramer, Summit producer
Steve Zuckerman, and guitar great Les Paul. |
Old enough to remember the glory days of rock "n" roll, and young enough -- both chronologically and spiritually -- to have participated in the online music craze of the late 90s, Steve Zuckerman is a man with a mission: to help emerging artists realize that the old major-label system is no longer working. And as a result, artists must find new opportunities, and new ways of creating -- and defining -- success.
In his long career, Zuckerman has worn many hats: musician, songwriter, journalist, photographer and filmmaker, to name a few. To many musicians, however, these days Zuckerman is the passionate, energetic force behind first the New York Music & Internet Expo, and more recently, the Global Entertainment and Media Summit, two shows designed to help emerging -- and established -- artists come together with other components of the music and film industries to learn, discuss, network and share their experiences in a spirit of mutual cooperation.
Recently, StarPolish editorial director James K. Willcox spoke with Zuckerman about his involvement in the dotcom music era, the demise of the New York Internet & Music Expo, and the creation of its successor, the Global Entertainment & Media Summit. [In the spirit of full disclosure, StarPolish is one of the sponsors of the Summit.]
The Summit's Beginning
STARPOLISH: When we first met, you were doing the New York Music & Internet Expo. Since then, you've created the Global Entertainment & Media Summit, which is being held this year in both New York and Los Angeles. Maybe a good place for us to start would be to talk about how and why you started the Summit, and how it's different.
ZUCKERMAN: I started it for a couple of reasons -- the first being that I had no choice but to start the Summit. When I had the NY Music & Internet Expo, which I launched out of my living room in 1998, for the '99 year, it was the very beginning of this artists' revolution, and it was really the first show that was dedicated more to the artist than the industry itself. I mean, tickets were about $15 for the day.
STARPOLISH: I think I was at that event when we started Riffage.com, which was in 1999...
ZUCKERMAN: Actually, I think it might have been a year later. [Riffage.com founder] Ken Wirt was still at Diamond Multimedia when the first show debuted, and when he launched Riffage I contacted him, and he said, "You're going to need a bigger room for next year." (laughs) And then Riffage launched, and sponsored the 2000 show.
A lot of people don't know what really happened, but I started this company called New Media Music as a way of keeping people connected between the shows. And it was a fun time, because we'd gone up against [Universal's] Farm Club -- it was David [Fagin] from The Rosenbergs and myself and a couple of others who saw this ridiculous contract and said, "You have to be crazy to appear on this show. You're giving your rights away." So it was a real fun time, starting this grassroots company out of my home, and I wanted to expand the vision. And I was told and promised [by a company interested in acquiring my company] about how they were going to expand the vision, and I said, "OK, I've never had a salary in my life -- I've always been a producer, and I roll the dice and at the end of the year I see what I've got." And so [the company was acquired], and here I was, spending five days a week getting on a bus after getting up at 5:00 a.m., and going to an office in Soho and finding myself very disenchanted. And instead of just winging it and doing what my instincts had always told me, I was now sitting in boardrooms...
STARPOLISH: So this was after your company was acquired?
ZUCKERMAN: Yes, New Media Music and the Expo were purchased right before the 2000 event --- and I didn't sell it for cash, I sold it for stock. At that time, in 2000, when we had the Expo at the New Yorker Hotel, it was this incredible time. In fact, we turned 150 sponsors down [for lack of space]. So I'm trying to figure out how am I going to expand the vision, and I decide to book the show at Madison Square Garden's Expo Center. So I sold the show, and the market died. And then I had probably the most horrible thing happen to me: I got sick. I produced the whole first Expo on my own, and I don't want to call it a mini-stroke, but had a twitching on the left side of my face, and the doctor said to me, "Steve, you better take care of yourself or you're going to die." So I took a lot of time off from going into Manhattan, and when I came back in, it was like, "This is my company? This is not what I want to do; it's never going to work." So I spent about year fighting for a vision, and then resigning from my own company three times. By the time the show was over at the Garden, I just wanted to quit, and I'm not a quitter. So I said, "Fire me." And they did. So I was fired from the company I started (laughs).
And I couldn't tell the story for 18 months; actually, the way the contract was [written], I couldn't tell it. So I'm sitting in the board room after they fire me from my own company, after they told me I'd have creative control. And I did have creative control, but I get sick and I really couldn't fight for anything, because I was told by my doctor not to come in. And I'm thinking, "OK, where is the success of the Expo? Where are the songwriters achieving success?" Barbara Jordan [of Heavy Hitters] had done a clinic, and I thought, wait a second -- this is working. You can't get record deals like you used to; Sony's not signing any of these bands. In fact, Sony's not signing anyone today because Sony just [merged with] BMG. So I thought, "Let's bring music and film, and music and video, together." And I said to the guys, "I'm going to do another show, I'm just not going to do a show on digital music. And I looked at my contract and I saw I could do it, and I came up with the idea for the Global Entertainment & Media Summit, based on losing my own company.
STARPOLISH: So does the old company still exist?
ZUCKERMAN: I think it still exists as a shell... I have no idea what's going to happen. It would be nice if they could sell it, so I could get rid of the stock. The corporation exists under their name, not mine. They had no idea what they were doing, and I found that out more the deeper I got into it. And basically what they were trying to do to my company was bundle it and sell it and get out; they were trying to take a bunch of dotcoms and put them under one thing, sell it, and then the stock would be worth a lot of money. It was just a bunch of millionaires sitting around trying to make some more money. It was not easy being fired from my own company I had built on my own. But, shit happens. And it was a good thing, too.
The Crazy '90s
STARPOLISH: It was a pretty crazy time, apart from everything else.
ZUCKERMAN: Being that I'm a musician -- I was 18 years old and being offered publishing deals by MCA -- in addition to being a filmmaker, and photographer, journalist, producer, promoter, as an artist and being able to understand other artists' needs I could never understand how any of these websites were ever going to make any money. And when I saw millions of dollars being thrown away, I was thinking, "You guys have to be kidding!" And some of these companies -- without mentioning them -- would come in and show me these PowerPoint presentations, and I would say, "Dude -- what the fuck do you do? I don't need 20-minute PowerPoints." And they'd say, "We help match people to tastes." For that, I don't need to be on a computer. You're telling me that if I like John Mellencamp, you can find me new artists like him? Yeah, OK, I get that. The unfortunate thing that happened, especially with MP3.com being sold and a lot of the others going bust, is that there was a lot of disillusionment, and there is a lot of bad tastes in people's mouths about what happened at that time. Because there was a lot of hope and promise. I think what people have to realize, it's like going back to Emerson's writing about self-reliance: We all have the power within ourselves.
And I think that's one of the things the Summit really stands for. Do we really need to have what we once thought we needed? No. Not that we can do everything on our own, but we can build teams. Someone called me this morning and said to me, "Steve, I've been to all these other shows, and the experience I get at the Summit is like no other experience. How do you do it?" And I said," I spend eight months to a year a year investing in companies and people. So when an artist or a musician or a filmmaker comes in, there is an incredible feeling of warmth, that there are people there that care. I mean, I will at times, purposely, put someone on a panel that doesn't belong there. And that's only to get the audience to think. "I don't need to get signed to that company, what are they kidding me?" Like the woman from a publishing company that said, "I wouldn't sign anyone from this room." It got them to think, not what is she doing there, but that they don't want to get signed to one of those companies. And to get them to rethink that maybe we can do this ourselves... maybe we can rethink our careers.
STARPOLISH: It maybe a brutal but honest thing for someone to say that, but a lot of times that eliminates the fuzzy-headedness of how some people approach the music business, thinking that they do have a chance of getting signed by someone or a company like that. So it's a healthy dose of reality for them to realize that that woman will likely never sign them, so maybe they need to find some alternative plans. Because the way that the business is structured, just mathematically the chances are very slim that it will benefit you in any major way.
For example, at last year's Summit there was a woman from J Records who said that she listened to 15 seconds of a song, and if she didn't hear a hit, that's the end of you. I think that as dispiriting as that is, in some ways it's also the reality -- that for certain labels, if you don't have a hit song in 15 seconds, that's the last time they'll listen to your music. And I think that understanding that is important, because so often the reality is candy-coated because people want to maintain that illusion and dream, and because other people want them to buy into it.
ZUCKERMAN: There is a project, called the Doppler Effect, which was an idea I had a year ago. And I just put it on hold until the right time. I was sitting with a very good friend, Bob Goodale, who managed David Bowie for eight years and was his partner in UltraStar, and we were talking about this, and all of a sudden he jumped up and said, "My God, this is really cool." And we were talking about artists, and the industry and all the misinformation, and two of the biggest problems an artist is faced with are one, there's too much noise, and two, they have to stop listening to their ego telling them what to do, and start listening to what their heart tells them to do.
Regarding too much noise, I'll give you an example: Let's take Manhattan. If I were representing an artist today, I wouldn't even want to go to Bleecker Street, because each club has five acts a night, and there are 100 acts playing, and no industry is coming out because the record industry as we once knew it, their job is to keep their jobs. And I'm not talking about A&R people, I'm talking about presidents of companies that used to have very solid, solvent jobs. So when there's too much noise.... I mean, how many websites can they go to? Thousands! How many do they go to? Why am I doing an interview with you? Because you're committed to integrity, and you have a good company. There are a lot of new sites -- artists' services sites -- and they can't even spell the word "artist." For $10 a month we'll do this, and for $20 a month we'll do this... there gets to be so much noise the artist is hearing that they don't listen to anything. And at the same time, they're trying to reach the consumer, and they're abusing their email lists.
I'll give you another example. One person came to the Summit and probably didn't listen to anything that was going on, because she'll play out three nights a week in New York and she'll get two or three people to come to her gigs. And she'd have a better opportunity playing in the subways and building a fan base. Now I'm not suggesting she do that, but what happens if you have a list of a thousand people and you give them three opportunities a week to see you, you're now diluting the list. That's the "too much noise" thing. There's a lot of noise, and a lot of it isn't worth listening to.
As for the heart thing, there's a reason that Scooter Scudieri has a buzz going on, or someone like Elza is achieving cuts. Or that certain people come into a show and industry people want to work with them. And I think that has a lot to do with the sincerity of the person's mission. A lot of people come in and they just want to take. And we're at the point in the industry where people want to be offered things -- and not just artists being offered an opportunity, but also people doing panels and giving keynotes. For example, I'm sitting with a man, Michael Uslan, who's one of the keynotes. People are going ask me, "Why did you pick the executive producer of Batman, the movie?" It's because he spent 13 years listening to his heart to make a movie -- he bought the rights to make the movie, and it took him 13 years to get it made. He followed his heart for 13 years -- not for three months, not for a year... People will come to the event and say, "I didn't get a deal today, so I'm not coming back." If that's what they're looking for, then they're in the wrong place. They might as well sign with Sony Record Club and get 10 CDs for a penny. Some people don't want the dose of reality; they want the fantasy. Well, we're not going to give them the fantasy.
Filmmaker Demian Lichtenstein (3000 Miles to Graceland)
coaching a filmmaker intensive. |
Summit Expectations
STARPOLISH: Maybe that's a good point for us to address with the Summit -- what is the proper expectation of someone attending that show? And why do you think it's a show that has continued -- and in fact grown this year with a move from Le Bar Bat to a hotel -- when a lot of the other shows are gone or shells of their former selves?
ZUCKERMAN: Do you want me to be real honest? I despise most of corporate America. It's a time when it's very difficult for people to make a living. And to go to a show and spend $300 or $400 is crazy, so I kept my price under $100. I had to raise the ticket price $20, because now I have a bigger rent, the same way when a restaurant expands, they raise the price of a hamburger. And there have been many times I've wanted to quit; many times I've wanted to walk away. After the 2002 Summit, I lost $20,000. Production expenses were up, sponsor sales were down... but then I looked at my audience and I thought, "Let me scale this down, let me not spend the money on the rent at the New Yorker Hotel this coming year," and I took it to Le Bar Bat. And [there] wasn't really room for the exhibitors, but I looked at the audience and said, "If I don't do this, who is going to do this right?" And I [imagined] someone coming in and doing a show and charging a lot of money, and for $250 you get to meet people who once worked with the Rolling Stones. What does that mean to an audience, meeting someone who once did something?
I think what separates the show here is that I'll spend my energy for a Mike Masucci, who is going to give, and a Barbara Jordan, who is going to give, and Damien Lichtenstein, who is going to give, and Michael Uslan, who's going to give, or Jack Healey is going to give. You turned me on to Dave Marsh, who isn't going to represent anyone there, but he gave. And so the audience, instead of coming in and hearing how you get a record deal, heard someone say, "You have the tools within yourself to achieve greatness." So if they come in with the expectation that they're going to get signed, then they shouldn't be attending. If the only question they ask is, "How do I play," then they shouldn't be attending. If the question they ask is, "Based on the fact that I have this amount of talent, I am looking for this, this and this in my career; and I can give this, and you can give this, how can we give and take," then this is the show. There's a person who met someone in the bathroom at the last Summit and now there's a licensing deal. There's an artist like Annie McCue, who is managed by Mike Gormley, who got signed to Messenger Records by meeting with them at the show, and Messenger Records picked up a distribution deal through Missy Collazzo at Megaforce MRI, who goes through Ryko. So here's a manager and an artist getting picked up by a label, which also got picked up by distribution -- all at the Summit.
STARPOLISH: In a sense it seems like what you're saying is that in the past, the artist-business relationship in a lot of ways has been an adversarial one, and you're saying that by aligning the interests of the various components in the industry -- which is what you try to do with the Summit -- it doesn't have to be that way. It's not like the artist is just expecting people to give them things; instead, all these different components need different things from the various members, so they each can give and take according to their respective needs and requirements. There's a greater synergy between the various components of the industry instead of it being an antagonistic one?
ZUCKERMAN: Yes -- and you said it better than I could; maybe because I'm in it, I can't see it that way (laughs). There's a guy named Barry Collin, who runs an organization called the Association of Independent Feature Film Producers, and he wrote a note to me about wanting to inform his 30,000 filmmakers about the Summit and its importance. And I asked what it is he saw in the show that would make it so important, and he said that a lot of filmmakers and people in the digital video world go to these shows, and all they get to do is touch cameras. He told me that we were providing distribution outlets, and creating new opportunities. For example, a person makes a motion picture, and the movie was made for half a million dollars, or a million dollars -- that's the budget. Now they need to license music -- they can't afford to go to Warner. But they can afford to license music from someone attending the show. So now there's a songwriter or a musician who has an opportunity they never would have had, because now there's a filmmaker there specifically looking for music.
I got an email from a client the other day who has a film with a soundtrack, and they're $200,000 short in marketing dollars, so it looks like the film is going direct to DVD. The soundtrack is incredible -- the superstars in the extreme sports genre of music. And how did I meet this person? One of the big filmmakers coming to the show told him, "You have to check this show out." Now, why would this person come to the show, he's already an established filmmaker? Even if his new film isn't out yet, he gets a chance to meet with someone like Larry Meistrich, who was the producer of Sling Blade, who has a new company called Film Movement. And it's a lot different walking up to someone and saying, "Hi," and introducing yourself that way, than doing something through email. You're putting a face to something. I think that's one thing artists get wrong -- they think the net is going to be the be-all and end-all for them, and they can do every deal over email, and I think they're wrong. I think they have to get out and press the flesh and meet people and network.
New & Improved
STARPOLISH: This is the third year of the Summit -- is there anything that people should expect different from shows in the past? Obviously, the venue is different, which should allow you to do some things you couldn't when the show was at Le Bar Bat.
ZUCKERMAN: There are a couple of announcements. There is a lot of talk about the whole peer-to-peer movement, and there have been a lot of lawsuits against the Kazaas and the Groksters and all that. So we're going to kick the show off...we're going to open the New York and L.A. shows with a peer-to-peer session. The difference is that it's not going to be someone saying that Kazaa or Grokster rules; we're going to have people from some of those companies, and technology companies and communications companies and the record labels, get together to find a solution. There will be some real groundbreaking stuff that the media is going to love. Artists are looking at peer-to-peer, and some of them say it's a life savior and others say that it's costing them income. I have a problem with anything that takes money away from the artist, but I also feel that ... there are two sides that this can work for those guys. I feel that the Summit will probably bring a lot of answers to the table. That's one thing. We're creating some promotional areas for artists, where they can hang out and promote their stuff if they're not playing. We're going to have pitch sessions, where people, if they're pre-registered, can make appointments and meet with people. And of course there will be a big party on Saturday night. We'll only have room for about 25 artists to perform -- we're going to have a day stage with only acoustic music during the day, and the harder electric stuff will be on Friday at the opening night party, and on Saturday night. Friday will be at the hotel; Saturday will be at a venue. And Sunday... I'm not sure yet.
And as the industry changes, I'm going to add things to a show -- you remove things, and you add things. We get a lot of pitches for people to be on panels -- I don't take anyone from songwriting contests on panels, because I don't think music should be judged that way, or that one song is "better" than another, because who knows? There are plenty of journalists who have passed on records that have become amazing-selling records.
STARPOLISH: Are there any new panels that have been created to address industry changes?
ZUCKERMAN: "Redefining Success," the "Record Industry of the Future," and the "Film Studio of the Future" are all new panels. Mike Masucci is doing a clinic; Damian Lichtenstein is doing a clinic... There's a whole thing going on about 24p for digital filmmakers. As you probably know, most filmmakers do not like digital video, and American Cinematographer, which is known for despising video, wrote a wonderful review of the video that got shot as a result of someone meeting someone else at the Summit. There is a band that met Mike Caporale, who does a lot of clinics for Panasonic for 24p. Panasonic had to shoot a 24p high-def video, so someone he met needed a video, so he shot it at his expense, Panasonic flew him back to New York to shoot it, and it made the NAB show. And American Cinematographer magazine wrote about it -- it was the first time that American Cinematographer raved about digital video. Not bad...
The Future for Indies
STARPOLISH: Given that you're doing a show, you seem like you have a vision of the role of independent artists moving forward. Where do you see a place for them? I think there was a lot of debate over the past couple of years that the Internet music companies -- MP3.com, Riffage.com, IUMA -- never really delivered on their promise of disintermediation from the record labels. Given that reality, do you see this as a time of increased opportunity, or is it a time of limited opportunity. Will more musicians be able to make a living, even if not realizing huge success?
ZUCKERMAN: No. In my opinion, some of the artists have to realize...well, let me give you an example. Right now, in New York, there are really only two music industry events: mine and CMJ's. If there were a show every single week, none of us would survive. The same way that the town I live in, which has 20,000 or 30,000 people, can only sustain a certain amount of pizza parlors, Chinese restaurants, bagel shops, clubs, bars, whatever. With the web, while there can be 20,000 websites to put your music on, how many of them can really do justice for the artist? Keeping that in mind, what the artists sometimes forget -- not all of them, but many of them -- is that there are only so many people out there that can buy your stuff. And... not every artist is going to be a success. It's just the law of the universe. There's no way that an MP3.com can have a quarter-million successful artists.
STARPOLISH: Is that a hard thing for some artists to acknowledge?
ZUCKERMAN: It's a hard thing for anyone to realize, not just an artist. But it's a matter of perspective. When you described the Summit, you described it better than I did, because you're seeing it from the perspective of an outsider -- like when they say you can't see a forest for the trees, because you're in it. In many cases, the artist is looking to get the next gig, instead of looking five years down the road and where they want to be. And in doing that, you're not looking with perspective; that view is very myopic, and that's not a put-down. I think what artists need to look at is the big picture, and realize that for every person they're soliciting to buy their record or see them play live, there are hundreds or thousands of others. That's why I don't go out to clubs on Bleecker Street in Manhattan. It's not because I don't enjoy music, it's that I get 20 or 30 invites a night and I just don't have the time to go to every single one. I'll listen to the music -- I have to -- when it comes in. But I truly believe that it's a lack of perspective in thinking. My first event I ever did was an ecology fair when I was 13, and I talked about the way that the smoke from factories was affecting the ecology. Well, it's the same thing -- every action affects everything. Artists need to think not just outside the system, but to take a look at themselves from a distance. So if my goal is to be a sustaining performing artist and I want to sell 20,000 records on my own -- because out of that I can get X net amount of dollars, and out of that we have the budget to put the band up in a house, get a van and tour, and we're able to do what we do full time, even if we're not rich -- that's redefining success. Then, I think, they can head in that direction. But like the artist -- without mentioning names -- who is thinking that he'll go play here, and go play here, and go play there, and they're playing three times a week -- I don't think they're thinking as clearly about what it is that they're trying to accomplish. They're just looking at the instant hit instead of the long term. It's the difference between having a one-night stand and getting married. I want to get married. I'm married to my career. I've been doing this for 28 years, full-time, professionally and I think artists need to look at that. Am I making sense?
STARPOLISH: Sure. And it touches on things I've thought about. For example, you mentioned that one of the new panels was going to be "Redefining Success." I think that a lot of artists don't really understand what success would be for them, and it can be different for different artists. There is the glorified idea of what success is, which is what you see when you turn on MTV Cribs and see the fairly ridiculous lifestyle that's enjoyed by a paltry few. But there's also the intermediary success, which is building a career that allows you to earn enough from writing and playing music so that you can have a decent life, support yourself and a family, etc. There are a lot of artists who can earn $150,000 or $200,000 a year, because they tour constantly, and developed a decent fan base, and have been able to realize some one-off opportunities, such as getting their music on a movie or TV soundtrack, or getting their music on a video game. But there seems to be the idea that you're not a success unless you have a major-label deal, or that you're on MTV... I mean, most teachers aren't rich, most postal workers aren't rich -- most Americans are not rich. Why does it seem that musicians have to have over-the-top successes to be considered successful? Is that what you're talking about when you discuss "redefining success?"
ZUCKERMAN: It is. And you talk about people living the MTV Cribs lifestyle -- there is a panelist, actually a keynote, named Bert Podell, who is a business manager for a lot of very famous people. Someone asked me, "Why are you having him doing a keynote?" And I said, "Well, he handles people like DeNiro and Luther Vandross and Britney Spears; he handles their money; But what he says early on to a lot of people is that your success may not last a long time, so what you need to do is find a way to make it last and have it sustain you. A lot of people don't understand that, they think that there's all this money. I mean, some people think I'm wealthy out of this. They see that there are a thousand people paying to attend a show, and they think I walk away with all that. What they don't realize is that it's struggle for me, too, because while I'm in this full time, I really have to be very selective who I choose. And I have to plan an event eight months to a year prior, and I'll spend 10- to 18-hour days working to build this show. And while I'm doing that, if you divide the amount of money that's generated by the hours I work, I could work at 7-11 and make more money. But I'm proud to say I do what I do, and I love it. And while I tried to walk away from it, I don't know what else I would do. I like putting people together.
There's a project called Hope; it's a concert I'm doing in a year, in November of 2004, a big, charitable thing we're doing Thanksgiving weekend. We're now in the process of dealing with television to pick it up, which we're ecstatic about. But there are so many people walking around feeling that they're entitled, that because they played a club, or sold records, or won this contest, that they're entitled to something -- like a career. And I know that sense of entitlement -- the thought that they deserve to have a career because they look good or sound good -- really hurts them. Why does Scooter have a career? What is it about him, and others like him? He is everything you'd think -- hardworking, dedicated, talented -- plus he's grateful. As an event, it's wonderful when people thank us for achieving a degree of success. There have been 20 or 30 song placements that have come out of the last show, plus one or two very nice records deals, with great distribution, and a few film deals that have gotten into Sundance and onto TV channels. But very rarely do any of the people who achieve that put a "thank you" into the credits of a record or film. And in an industry where there is so much bullshit, and I'm told we're one of the few straight shooters out there, so it's wonderful when someone like Scooter continually thanks us -- on stage, in print, everywhere. And he plugs us. Artists sometimes forget not necessarily where they came from, but how they got there.
And if they got success once out of a show, they just might get success two or three times out of the show. And I think that artists sometimes have to stop thinking of themselves and think of others, and give -- give to the people in the audience, and share with the people in the audience, open up to people in the audience, trade gigs with people in the audience. Artists need to realize that it's not just them; they are connected. We are all connected, and the Summit provides an experience to make an incredible amount of positive connections, not just for artists to take from, but to give towards.
Challenges
STARPOLISH: What is the biggest impediment to achieving the goals you have for the Summit?
ZUCKERMAN: The biggest thing going against us? It's the idea that they can do things digitally, only, the idea that being on the net is the only way to make a deal. What Bob Goodale, who managed Bowie for eight years, and who is an advisor to me in the Summit and with Doppler, said to me was, "The net is an illusion." Turn your computer off -- it's not there. Just like your television, or the programs, is an illusion. The successful sites -- Yahoo, eBay, the Summit -- are the ones that get people to go online to go offline. If it's just an online presence, and it's not promoting an offline presence, you have to ask in many cases if it can really help. So the impediment that's hurting us is the unwillingness for people to get out of their chairs and out of their homes and work at it. That's one of them. The other is, how badly does someone want it? Someone told me they couldn't make it to the N.Y. show, so I said they could go to the L.A. show. The price of admission to the L.A. show, plus an airline ticket and two nights in a hotel, is less than going to CMJ (laughs).
STARPOLISH: Knowing what it takes for you to put on one show, what would make you want to do two shows?
ZUCKERMAN: People coming to the Summit in N.Y. become part of the Doppler Effect, and people coming to the show in L.A. become part of the Doppler Effect. So by finding the real cool talent in the industry, we start to connect people, so we now have a bigger audience to connect people to. That's number one. Number two is that from what I've been told, they need us in L.A.
STARPOLISH: Last question: Given that. L.A. is the home of the film industry, will there be a slightly different orientation to that show?
ZUCKERMAN: I think there will be a bigger movie presence there, so for musicians there will be incredible opportunities in film there. I don't see a lot of record labels signing talent today, but I do see a lot of films, multimedia, and gaming [using music]. L.A. is going to be an interesting show. Mile Copeland is keynoting there -- and he's a very interesting man.
For information about the NY and LA Summits, visit the Summit website at: www.globalentertainmentnetwork.com
Rick Ulfick, Producer; Michael Caporale, Filmmaker; Michael Fitzpatrick; Summit Producer Steve Zuckerman; Dennis D'Amico (www.garlandappeal.com) Danny Schechter, www.mediachannel.org; Paul Sladkus, Producer, Demian Lichtenstein; Filmmaker/Director. |
