With her head firmly on earth Nat spent her week luring brand agencies to the sunny sands of Punta Christo, which slowly seems to be coming together. A quiet week in the office was rounded up with Nat chasing Alondra Bentley reviewers and tidying up a draft of a live music editorial for MusicTank. With Sam’s strongly scented return, something tells her the office won’t stay quiet much longer.

Dave got a whole lot of stuff done this week while Sam was away, including an op-ed piece destined for Billboard that’s been on the back burner for far too long, ghost-written for one of our clients. With one final job interview, phoning journalists who are never there, and heaps of admin, Dave is sure he’s been working hard but can’t quite remember what he’s done.

Knee deep in the quagmire of insurance policy Hugo struggled to push forward through masses of paper filled with endless quotes, ludicrous questions and relentless clauses. He maintained considerable control through the whole process only lashing out the one time at a particularly inept insurance salesman/broker/merchant of frustration after he scolded Hugo in an unintelligible accent for lack of insurance cover confusing him for the ‘business proprietor’. Hugo also spent considerable time researching the appalling state of Spanish piracy and the social media situation of some of the UK’s top festivals.

John on the other hand has mostly been contemplating the greatness of Kanye West’s Twitter stream, getting excited about seeing Kid Creole & The Coconuts play in a swimming pool on Friday and looking at property on Mallorca. Oh and of course doing lots and lots of really fun work.

One slightly amusing point for all came at the hands of the famed printer/computer company Hewlet Packard. In one small step towards our never ending quest to reduce our ecological footprint and become better people we at Name decided amongst other things to recycle our printer cartages. HP handily advised us that they can send us a recycling box to return our cartridge in and have it recycled. They sent the following (cartridge on left)… “(Us) and HP for a better environment”

Of course it is the end of the month this too which all you astute followers will know means, NAME MONTHLY MIXTAPE. You will all find a varied selection here reflecting the range of tastes here at Name. Feel free to subscribe so you will pick up on our aural treats every month or let us know if you have any suggestions.
Link to be found here.

Well thats it from the lavender office,
Wishing you all a good weekend and week ahead.

Name Team

“Electronic Music: A Business Report” by Kevin Watson for IMS

Available to download from www.internationalmusicsummit.com

26^th July 2010:- The Ibiza International Music Summit (IMS) today announced the publication of its first annual business report on the electronic music market.

The report was commissioned by the IMS and presented exclusively to delegates by Kevin Watson at the opening of IMS 2010 in May. It contains up-to-date statistics, analysis and insight on the key elements of the global electronic music industry, providing individuals and organisations from all areas of electronic music with a global end-to-end view of the industry.

It is the first time a report such as this has been made available on the electronic music industry. The publication supports the IMS in its wider mission to supply those working in the industry with a backbone of reliable business resources: an initiative which has included the establishment of an ambitious working group to develop an accurate and authoritative new DJ-related popularity index (planned for launch in 2010).

The IMS aims to be the most business-focussed and intelligent event in the electronic music calendar and has been called ‘the TED of electronic conferences’ in relation to the new ideas event which has just taken place in Oxford, England.

The report’s author, Kevin Watson, has drawn on a range of sources including official sales figures from the BPI and its international equivalents, data from social networking sites and chart companies, census data and trade and consumer press.

In the current climate of dance music taking over America, IMS compares Google search popularity, with DJs such as David Guetta and Tiësto not far behind major R’n’B and pop acts like Lady Gaga and the Black Eyed Peas, and ahead of the Kings of Leon. Both DJs have more Facebook followers than the Black Eyed Peas.

Ben Turner, co-founder of IMS said, “The IMS mission statement from year one was ‘Back To Business’ and its amazing to see what has happened to our industry in the last 12 months. It is clear with all the conversations people in the electronic world are having with brands, media companies, mainstream labels and investors, that there is a hunger to be associated with this genre. Yet when it comes to facts and figures, our industry tends to undersell itself.

This report is the start of an investment from the IMS side in providing some real data and whilst it falls short of being in anyway comprehensive, it is a starting point, the first step in finally explaining to the wider industry quite how popular this scene really is.”

- end -
Notes for editors

The report is available to download as a pdf priced at €50 from:

http://www.internationalmusicsummit.com/html/businessReport.html

Report contents

• Electronic music share of album sales by key territories

• Global audience exposure of most popular electronic tracks

• Global popularity of electronic music DJs and live acts compared to rock and pop acts

• Social networking – size and engagement of fan base of leading DJs and live acts on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter

• Relative penetration of clubs and festivals and size of potential market by country

• Total electronic music festival capacity by country

• Industry overview for UK, USA and France

About the International Music Summit

Founded in 2008 by BBC Radio 1 DJ Pete Tong along with partners Ben Turner, Danny Whittle, Mark Netto and Simeon Friend, the International Music Summit has rapidly established itself as the pre-eminent business event for those working within the electronic music community.

A place to do business, network and learn, the past three years have seen a host of music industry executives, DJs and artists descend on the white island for what has become one of the biggest dates in the electronic music calendar.

2010 was the summit’s most successful year to date as the event commandeered the entire Five Star Ibiza Gran Hotel in Ibiza Town and played host to a significant delegation of industry executives from the US, drawn by the resurgence of electronic music in the States.

Respected for the high level of debate, the quality of the panels and the emphasis of getting business done, the International Music Summit has finally provided the electronic music industry with an event representative of its importance to the global music market.

Ted Cohen, Tag Strategic “IMS is probably the most exhilarating conference I’ve ever participated in. The level of the dialogue, the fantastic location and the MUSIC combine to make this the must-attend annual event. Ibiza and IMS are an amazing pairing.”

http://www.internationalmusicsummit.com/

The arrival of a new high-backed leather office chair made clear to all that all office chairs were not created equal. The surprising benevolence of some was starkly contrasted by thinly veiled envy of others. As in most instances the issue was solved by a mix pilfering from the lofty heights of authority and the placating allusion to leather office chairs for all.

Much of both Sam and Dave’s week was taken up by planning and holding interviews for the new job. Among the hypothetical challenges set to the interviewees was a question on how to market a particular new album. The album, which began as being “incidentally, not very good”, by the end of the second day of interviews, had become “atrocious” and “a creative disaster”: how on earth were these poor candidates going to pick up the pieces? Conversely, a situation hypothetically giving each candidate political influence over the music industry, somehow after seeing a dozen or so candidates came to grant absolute totalitarian power to change everything we hold dear. Such are the ravages of trying to fit all this in around an already busy week’s work.

As we all watched Sam leave the office for the sunny shores of Croatia we were more than aware that we hadn’t quite left us in the lurch. He declared to all that he would “leave his computer behind” as he was in need of a break, apparently his new Iphone 4 has enough computing power to more than keep tabs on the office goings on. In fact John, our de facto/temporary big cheese, was said to have heard an air hostess in the background of one of his conversations pleading with him, “I’m sorry sir, could you please turn off your phone. The flight is leaving”.

Once the banal tasks of filing receipts and updating stat records has been done, most of Nat’s week was dedicated to the telephone, you wouldn’t think it’d be this hard to convince people to jet off to sunny Adriatic coast for a music festival in the drab month of September, but it seems that way; Still plugging away trying to find brands to fly out to the sold out Outlook. Whilst also making sure everyone knows about Ekstravaganza 5 tonight at Corsica Studios, cocktails, BBQ, and the finest cosmic disco, techno tunes is there anything better on a Friday night?

Hugo was very pleased to get involved in nuts and bolts of a PR company from drafting press releases to brainstorming social media solutions for PR campaigns the learning curve doesn’t seem to flattening out any time soon, be he wouldn’t have it any other way.

The week for Mr Power (as he’s insisted we call him for the remaining couple of days) has mostly been spent getting the final bits and bobs in place for this weekend’s Soundwave Festival in Croatia, cursing his now unfathomable decision not to actually go out there and consoling himself with the fact that Corsica Studios summer party tonight should be almost as fun as a weekend on the Adriatic. When not busying himself with client work he’s been celebrating four years of his blog’s existence and poring over around half a dozen books on good social media practice to keep himself razor sharp…

So that sums up another week here at the UK’s most hardworking PR company, wishing everyone a good weekend and week ahead. Especially Sam who shouldn’t worry as we haven’t changed the locks…at all.

Till next time,

The Name team

With 3 months to go before the 2010 Oxjam Festival, a record 2600 volunteers have already signed up to stage their own fund raising events. Held in towns and cities across the UK, Oxjam encourages promoters and music fans to stage a club night or gig to raise funds for Oxfam.

Helping Oxjam reach that record number has been leading UK ticket agency WeGotTickets, a supporter of the charity for several years and who has encouraged more than 600 of their own customers to sign up to run Oxjam events.

Those volunteers will now receive training and advice in event promotion and management from Oxjam, with WeGotTickets creating a ‘How To…’ guide for first time promoters to ensure that their events run as smoothly as possible. For the third year running WeGotTickets will also be the preferred ticket vendor for the Oxjam festival providing wannabe promoters an easy way to sell advance tickets no matter how small their event.

Launched in 2006, the festival has seen more than 36,000 musicians play to an audience of over 750,000 people at almost 3,000 Oxjam events, raising in excess of £1 million to fight poverty around the world.

2009 was the festival’s biggest year to date with the likes of Editors, Basement Jaxx and Fatboy Slim playing special one off events at Oxfam stores and the staging of the first Oxjam city takeovers. On one day alone last year more than 2,000 musicians filled over 150 venues in more than 20 cities, from Cardiff to London, Aberdeen to Bath.

Said Steven Endersby, WeGotTickets “We’ve been really privileged to work as Oxjam’s ticketing partner since the 2008 festival. Our customers have responded brilliantly each year- snapping up loads of tickets, particularly to last year’s launch shows and takeover events, whilst donating thousands of pounds at the same time. Now we’ve given them the opportunity to get involved directly and organise their own Oxjam event, and to see over 600 of our customers volunteer is something we’re really proud of.

We hoped when we were putting this together that our unique position within the ticketing market, working mainly with small to medium sized independent venues and promoters, would mean that our customers are exactly the type of pro-active, socially aware people that would want to get involved, and  we’re delighted to see so many of them volunteer.”

Stuart Fowkes from Oxjam said:

“With an extraordinary number of people – from first-time promoters to seasoned pros – signing up to put on a show for Oxjam, we’re well on course for a record year. The more shows that take place, the more money will be raised to help us fight poverty. We’ve already raised more than £1 million through Oxjam, so anything’s possible this year.

We Got Tickets are the perfect ticketing partner for us, as they make it easy for anyone to try their hand at promoting a gig, safe in the knowledge that they have an excellent, hassle-free ticketing system backing them up.”

”

- end –

About Oxjam

Oxjam is the festival with a difference: all the fundraising music events are put on by ordinary people - from large-scale festivals to local sponsored busks. Since the launch of Oxjam in 2006, more than 36,000 musicians have taken part in almost 3,000 Oxjam events nationwide, raising over £1 million for Oxfam’s work to end poverty.

www.oxfam.org.uk/oxjam

Photos, audio clips and videos of a wide range of celebrities supporting Oxjam are available from www.oxfam.org.uk/oxjam/press.

About WeGotTickets

WeGotTickets is the leading ticketing agency in the UK for small to medium sized venues and promoters and currently works with over 3000 such organisations.

WeGotTickets has made it possible for promoters of all manner of events to benefit from advance ticket sales and now sells more than 500,000 tickets a year for a wide range of events; from art events and underground restaurants, to traditional live music shows. Indeed to cater for the growing demand for comedy tickets the company recently launched WeGotComedy.com, the UK’s only dedicated online ticket portal for comedy events.

Since its launch WeGotTickets has consistently pushed for innovation, transparency and best practice across the ticketing industry, with many of the company’s ideas becoming standard industry practice.

The company’s 10% maximum ticket commission rate has helped to lower fees across the business, whilst its pioneering paperless ticketing system has been a major factor in reducing the live music industry’s carbon footprint. The company has also been involved in numerous initiatives to help develop the grassroots live music industry and in 2009 launched an online forum where the company’s clients can network and share resources and knowledge in private.

Over the years WeGotTickets has been proud to work on a number of special campaigns with charities such as Oxjam, Childline and Warchild, and regularly donates a percentage of their booking fees back to these groups. In 2009 the company launched a unique feature allowing ticket buyers to quickly and easily make a donation to a featured charity whilst purchasing tickets.

Started in Oxford in the early noughties, the company was set up as a result of the founders being unable to sell advance tickets for one of their concerts at a venue that lacked a box office. Originally selling through their music merchandise website www.OxfordMusic.net, the WeGotTickets online box office was fully launched in 2002, selling tickets for The Zodiac (now O2 Academy) in Oxford and other venues.

www.wegottickets.com

John’s frustration was palpable, as an avid user of the London public transport system he claimed he mainly spent the week stranded on tubes or tube station platforms, as our antiquated public transport network crumbled in the heat.

Hugo found the constant hacking at his work pile was starting to pay off, with an increasingly smaller list of things to do. Unfortunately with that came the necessity of dealing with the somewhat more unpleasant tasks, like photographing some very unwilling colleagues for the website write-up. He also found himself in a battle of wits with security one morning after turning up to the office to find everyone out except a pugnacious guard.

For Nat it was more of the same this week, chasing up sponsorship and finding which lucky Cinderellas shall go to the Outlook Ball or rather which lucky top draw brands get to jet set across to the gorgeous Pula in Croatia for sun, sea and heavy Dubstep beats. Thoughts are already turning to next year too, having drawn up a list with over 300 potential sponsors in the mix.

Sam found this a busy week work-wise with lots of meetings, planning MusicTank’s Autumn think tank programme and preparing for big news about digital services in the coming weeks. He also managed to cajole another of his mates to join the ‘Name’ Facebook group rolling slowly towards his goal of cracking 57 ‘likes’ by Sunday. He finally snapped though, in his attempts to copy purchased itunes downloads onto another laptop or play them with MP3 equipment.

As I’m sure many are aware, the deadline for job applications for our new press officer was on Monday, and Dave has been spending most of his time engaged in the heartbreaking task of throwing most of the CVs received in the bin. (That’s an exaggeration actually: most never even get printed out.) Such is the wealth of talent around and the dearth of jobs on offer nowadays, especially in the music industry.

It’s also symptomatic of how easy it is to cut and paste an application and email it off, without even putting the name of the company you’re applying to on the cover note. But those kinds of lazy bulk applications have been relatively few, and by and large the standard has been high. It’s been hard work assessing everyone’s potential and even harder having to dismiss so many people’s sincere and conscientious efforts - lightened only by the opportunity to trash a few of the more arrogant, presumptuous and annoying attempts (leave your sense of entitlement at the door if you’re going to try to get into music), and by the notion that at the end of this process, at least one person is going to have a great new job.

Well, the big cheese is away for half of next week so you all can look forward to the next instalment of week notes to be full of office parties and running up expense accounts…but that’s still a week away.

Talk again soon,

The Name Team

Canadian independents Arts&Crafts and Dine Alone are among the latest signings to Essential’s growing roster of labels relying on the London based company for distribution and marketing services.

Arts&Crafts, whose arrangement with Essential covers distribution and services across Europe, is the home to established artists including Jason Collett and new signings Dan Mangan and Zeus. Collett’s Rat A Tat Tat, his fourth album for the label, will be released in September alongside Zeus’s debut Say Us. Mangan recently played an inspired set at Glastonbury’s John Peel stage; his album Nice Nice Very Nice will see its European release in October.

Dine Alone has signed a services and distribution deal with Essential covering the UK and Ireland. They have just released the latest album from Hot Hot Heat, and the band will be touring the UK later in the year. New Canadian bands Parlovr and Wooden Sky will be releasing new recordings on the label though Essential in the near future. Parlovr generated considerable buzz at SXSW this year and on their recent French tour. From Dine Alone Essential will also be acquiring catalogue from Moneen and Attack In Black.

A services deal for Europe has also been inked with the management of alternative metalers Helmet, who will be releasing albums on the Work Song Incorporated label.

Earlier this week…

The company inked a Europe-wide services deal with leading US independent label Vagrant. The first project under the new agreement is indie-pop/rock Broken Social Scene collaborators Stars whose album The Five Ghosts was released across Europe on 21st June. The band, who were previously signed to City Slang (Co-operative) for Europe, have already received heavy rotation across Germany for lead single “Fixed”, with a slew of forthcoming press coverage supporting the UK build.

The deal sees Essential pick up catalogue from the Hold Steady, Alkaline Trio, Get Up Kids as well as international new releases for Vagrant.

This side of the pond, a new worldwide services deal between Essential and Cheap Thrills will see Essential release singles and albums from among others Fake Blood, the producer behind the underground club classic “Mars”, and house pioneers Hervé, Jack Beats and Reset!.

Essential will release Fake Blood’s forthcoming single “I Think I Like It” on 8th August on Cheap Thrills. Already a top-ten hit in Belgium following its inclusion on the Fix Your Accent EP in 2009, expectations are high for a repeat its earlier chart performance, and the track has already been selected as Scott Mill’s record of the week (5th July – 11th July). Fake Blood’s debut album will be released in February 2011, with debut albums by Hervé and Jack Beats following in the spring.

A separate services deal inked directly with Fake Blood will see Essential release singles every month from August on Fake Blood’s own label, Blood Music. Dedicated to nurturing new DJ talent, the releases will all include Fake Blood edits, and some of the top dance names including the likes of Diplo.

Next up, the long-awaited first album from Peter Hook’s Freebass project, It’s a Beautiful Life, after rumours dating from as far back as 2005, is finally to see a wide-scale release, following a worldwide services agreement just signed between Essential and Hook’s Hacienda Records label.

Featuring Hook (New Order/Joy Division), Andy Rourke (The Smiths) and Gary “Mani” Mountfield (Stone Roses/Primal Scream) all on bass, the album and debut EP Two Worlds Collide will be given a full physical and digital release across the world later this year. The services deal will see further albums released by Essential on the Hacienda label, details tba.

The company is also readying up a two major single releases for urban producer DaVinChe. The next two singles for the fast-rising producer, already known for his work with Kano and Tinchy Stryder, will feature vocals from two internationally renowned pop singers. The singles are slated for September and October release on DaVinChe’s own Dirty Canvas label, which is funded by Shamrock Partners. Essential will follow the singles with the worldwide Autumn release of the classically trained composer’s debut album Open Minded.

Summing up Essential-Music’s business model, the company’s founder Mike Chadwick said, “It’s an exciting time for us, our model certainly fits the current climate within the industry and being able to offer a range of services from sales and distribution through to full project management means we are exceedingly well placed to progress in the future.”

About Essential

Essential Music & Marketing has been redefining the roles of distributor and record label since its inception in 2003 by Mike Chadwick, former MD Vital Distribution and Martin Goldschmidt, owner of Cooking Vinyl Records.

Founded to offer all-in-one marketing and distribution services to select North American independent labels seeking to release across the UK and Europe, Essential now also work with self-releasing artists and independent labels from across the UK and beyond.

Services include physical and digital sales and distribution and a burgeoning package of product management activities ranging from overall strategy, targeting featured artists and sourcing remixes through to recruitment of 3rd party specialists and digital marketing.
Labels and artists with service deals with Essential include Ou Est Le Swimming Pool, Noisia, Zinc, Cheap Thrills, New West, Vagrant Records, Ed Harcourt.

Labels distributed by Essential include Cooking Vinyl, Stones Throw, Surrender All, Big Teeth, Fat Possum, R&S.

Essential is part of the Cooking Vinyl group, which comprises of Cooking Vinyl Records, Essential Music & Marketing and Cooking Vinyl Music Publishing, which is run by Paul Kinder, a former director at Chrysalis.

www.essential-music.com

We, the Name team have been adding to our existing brow sweat as we work feverishly to diminish our ever increasing workloads. The office is looking tidier little by little as the piles of newspapers disappear and the desk setup becomes more aesthetically pleasing, bringing another computer into its ranks.

Hugo, the newly hired intern, is intently holding fast in the ascension of his steep but reasonably smooth learning curve growing before his eyes. Working on projects throughout the week his jobs went from an impromptu insurance broker to an apprentice in web design. Although his easily most frustrating moments came at the hands of Facebook, their polling applications and the fact that a basic fan page does not have the capacity to invite friends to an event is a clear flaw in the design which has been left unresolved for litrally years.

Having finally got round to completing the send out on Alondra Bentley’s latest EP, Nat is discovering that the cost of sending out over a hundred copies, is chasing over a hundred companies to review it. The rest of the week’s been taken up by chasing sponsorship for the sold out Outlook Festival, and choosing which lucky brand agencies get flown out to attend, unfortunately not her…

Dave has spent a whole lot of his time explaining our arcane Dickensian accounting systems to a polite but incredulous professional accountant, and meanwhile writing the copy for Essential Music’s new website, and announcing their latest signings. He’s also suddenly being asked to write references for past interns and is not sure just how honest to be.

John this week has been mainly confirming his annual suspicion that he’s just not built for hot countries. When not melting into his chair though he’s mainly been getting excited about the upcoming Glitch Mob gig at Koko, preparing for the Edinburgh fringe with the lovely people at WeGotTickets and trying to determine what if any use a psychic octopus would be in a pr company.

Big cheese Sam claims, “if ever there was a week of cock ups this was it”.  And it wasn’t just O2 - although they did manage to mess up the porting over of his telephone number, meaning his line was dead for much of his birthday - so he apologises now if you texted and got no response. (As a side note this could be a convenient excuse should one have forgotten to ‘call’ on his birthday entirely).

Our new bookkeeper managed to copy Dave our client as opposed to Dave our press officer on half the weekly invoices, we had various stories pulled for a series of annoying reasons and if things carry on as they seem to be between two of our clients we’re going to have to split the office in two, separated by electric fence and barbed wire as we each drop molotov cocktails over the barricades!

Ah well, you can’t say pr’s boring…

Just a quick reminder that the deadline for applications for the chance to join our team is fast approaching see add. CVs need to be with us by Monday morning. It’s competitive though, with the ratio of applicants to our one place approaching triple the figures recently reported on for graduate jobs in the press.

Thats it for this week,

Over and out from the team at Name.

The consultation is scheduled to close on 7 September 2010. Given the complexity of the issues under consideration and the impracticability of consulting our members during the peak summer season, AIF have formally requested that PRS for Music extend the consultation period to 31 December 2010.

The consultation is wide ranging, including reviews of the Tariff LP (for popular music events) and Tariff DP (for dance parties). PRS invites stakeholders to submit their views on a variety of issues including the secondary ticketing market, the percentage of the basic rate, restructuring the royalty base, and the proposed termination of Tariff DP with dance party events to be charged under Tariff LP.

AIF very much welcomes the opportunity to provide input and to respond to the consultation on the proposed review of the tariffs. Our members include some of the best-known UK independent festivals, covering every conceivable genre of music and festival experience, providing a unique mix of cutting edge music, arts and other entertainments and delivering a boost to local economies. Most independent festivals are operating at the margins of profitability but add vastly to the wealth of the local, and music economies.

Alison Wenham, Chairman, AIF says: “The independent festival sector was nascent at the time of the last tariff review – since then it has grown into a world-renowned industry. We are asking for an extension to the consultation process so that AIF members and indeed all festival promoters have a chance to openly discuss the proposed tariff changes in a spirit of cooperation commensurate with our common goal of preserving and stimulating growth throughout the UK live music sector, and preserving the balance between entrepreneurial risk and fair reward.”

- Ends -

Notes for Editors:

About AIF

The Association of Independent Festivals is a not for profit body set up in 2008 to represent independent music festivals in the UK and Ireland.

Conceived by Bestival promoter Rob da Bank and Graphite’s Ben Turner, the association’s founder members included Bestival, Cornbury Festival, Creamfields, Evolution Festival, Field Day/Underage, Secret Garden Party, Summer Sundae Weekender and WOMAD.

With 25 members ranging from Northern Ireland’s 1,000 capacity Glasgowbury to the 40,000 capacity Creamfields in Liverpool, AIF enables the promoters of some of the UK & Ireland’s most innovative and successful festivals to speak with one voice when addressing the wider music business and government.

AIF aims to establish best practice for festivals in a variety of areas such as security, the environment and beyond, providing a knowledge base for festival promoters, as well as creating collective purchasing and marketing opportunities for its members.
AIF operates as an autonomous division of the Association of Independent Music.

www.aiforg.com

To start with we had a new intern start last week, hailing from the far off shores of barbequed ork burgers and warrior dances, Hugo was welcomed into Name with the mammoth sorting task of our slightly unattended newspaper pit. On coming up for air he was, to his relief, handed further projects from reports on the secondary ticketing market to taking over basic office duties like press clippings and social media updates.

As you all will I’m sure be aware we announced a new job opportunity on Tuesday and have already received something approaching 100 CVs. There are evidently lots of talented people out there looking for jobs, and quite a few jokers as well.

How about a couple of tips from our employment guru Dave:

• We’re not a record label, so you might want to take that out of the email you just cut and pasted from another application!
• It won’t count against you, but I think 6pt is pushing the boundaries of tasteful restraint vis-a-vis choosing an elegantly understated font size.

Now if you’ve applied, hold tight, and we’ll be getting in touch just as soon as we can clamber through them all.

The lovely Nat was our representative last week at Glastonbury requiring her take the following Monday off to recuperate from a very hot and very dusty Glastonbury; a six hour car journey home had her rejoicing at the sight of powered showers and flushable toilets.

After getting back she hit the ground running with literally 300 emails overflowing her inbox and the masses of receipts needing processing. It was then on to sending out the latest press release for the now SOLD OUT Outlook Festival and then the cracking on with sponsorship…ah, I’ll bet those sun soaked plains of Glastonbury seem so far away.

Our fearless leader Sam has spent the week meeting some good people down at AIM’s music connected. He has also mentioned hearing encouraging plans for emusic to get more reportoire, and more encouraging noises that we might one day see digital downloads given away with all physical purchase of music.

He also spent a good proportion of the week suffering a near nervous breakdown at the hands of O2 customer service.

Mr J. Power has mainly been confronting the horror of what happens when a couple of festivals you’re working on go from being relatively unknown in 2009 to being sellout successes in 2010, and every single journalist in Europe starts badgering you for free tickets. Still SOLD OUT (times two) so hurrah…

Apart from that he spent the week working on last week’s War Child benefit at Cargo, getting ready for our clients activity at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, being very happy that an interview he did with the legendary Ray Harryhausen came out just in time for the venerable animator’s 90th birthday and listening to Sam moan at O2 about his bloody iPhone.

So that sums up our week here at Name and sets us up for our new week with new challenges. We’ll keep you all posted each week with updates and anecdotes.

Talk soon,
Name team

FUGA’s latest signings include Epitaph Europe, Defected, Anjunabeats, ST Holdings, Eros International, Phonetic Recordings, Toucan Cove, Night Drive Music, Agenda Music, System Recordings, Keyprom, Freddie Records, Sundesire Records and Muti Music.

These signings cement FUGAs position as the number one choice for independent labels and distributors looking to automate and control their digital deliveries.

Representing artists such as Bob Sinclair, The Prodigy, Tensnake, Bad Religion, Tom Waits, Offspring, Above and Beyond, Paul Harris (Dirty Vegas), Dave Seaman and Dirty Vegas, these labels will now have full control of their digital catalogue from just one simple online interface.

FUGA has also recently renewed service agreements with clients Nettwerk Music Group, CNR Records and Blackhole Recordings.

Able to deliver to more than 300 digital services at the push of a button, including iTunes, Spotify, Beatport, Amazon and MySpace - FUGA can also deliver content directly to:

Promotional sites: FATDrop, Soundcloud and Music2Radio
Video Streaming services: YouTube, Muzu and MyVideo
Royalty systems: Royalty Share and The Officer.
Anti-piracy services: Link Busters (Link-busters scans the internet for your content and will take appropriate action to remove any infringements.)

FUGA has also recently integrated with the back office solution Backlashsolutions – meaning labels can export their metadata from Backlashsolutions into FUGA and metadata from FUGA into Backlashsolutions.

FUGA’s comprehensive suite of features means that labels and distributors are increasingly turning to FUGA to fully manage their digital operation - from maintaining the metadata of their catalogues through to delivery of their content to a diverse range of services such as online retailers, promotional sites, royalty Systems, anti-piracy services and video streaming sites.

Rebecca Driessen - COO FUGA: “We are incredibly pleased to welcome these clients to the FUGA network and are committed to supporting their ongoing digital requirements. Our intention is to continue to add services and features to FUGA that will save labels and distributors using FUGA considerable operational costs and that will simplify their digital workflow.”

Andrew Parkinson – Director, ST Holdings: “S.T. Holdings is looking forward to working FUGA. They have a thorough understanding of independent music distributors and their needs”

Lynda Phoenix – Digital Manager, Defected Records: ”We required a digital delivery system to service some niche dance stores. The FUGA system offers a quick and effective solution, the technology has helped us to adapt to the ever changing digital music industry”

Øystein Efterdal – Owner, Agenda Music: “The days before we used FUGA were a real headache, especially since the digital industry is so young and there is still no standard on how to deliver content to the stores. Now we are using FUGA we can expand our digital delivery partners, find new connections, integrate with our own systems and have control of our content at anytime”

-    end –

About FUGA
FUGA is a unique online platform that has been custom developed to suit the real world requirements of record labels, distributors, aggregators and artist management companies - enabling them to manage and deliver their digital catalogue from a central location.
Using the platform’s simple online user interface, content owners can easily maintain their catalogue’s metadata, make new compilations from already uploaded items, instantly deliver content to any online service they have an agreement with and access up-to-the minute data on where their content has been delivered.

FUGA is connected to more than three hundred online services such as iTunes, Spotify, Beatport, Amazon MySpace and Rhapsody. Content providers can also use FUGA to export their metadata to royalty systems, promotional services and anti-piracy services.
FUGA is owned by Netherlands based technology company Independent IP.

For more and information and to take a tour please visit www.fuga.me