In 2011 Sound City welcomed an audience from 23 different countries, building upon the success of the previous three years. This year’s event reached an audience of over 35,000 people at the festival, an impressive figure considering that the festival went from 4 days in 2010 to 3 days in 2011.  It provided a platform for over 360 artists at 25 venues in Liverpool city centre and played host to over 2,512 delegates from all over the UK, Europe, USA, South America, Australasia and Asia.

Key speakers including Peter Hook and Kevin Cummins, RjDj’s Michael Breidenbruecker, Next Big Sound’s Alex White and Drowned In Sound’s Sean Adams, Simon Raymonde from Bella Union and Eric Pulido of Midlake.

We teamed up with the hugely respected tech site The Next Web, for the LSC App Panel - featuring AudioBoo, Mobile Roadie, Shazam, BandApp and RjDj, moderated by TNW’s own Matt Brian.

Conference

We looked at new ways of funding projects, with panels on the rise and rise of microfunding, hooking up with brands and the world of sync - the latter featuring 3 times Grammy nominated music supervisor and KCRW DJ Chris Douridas.

We discussed fan engagement and  hosted some of the best and brightest heads in music tech - featuring Shufflr.fm, SoundCloud, Last.fm, Music Hack Day, SoundOut and Radar Maker .

We also featured the philosophical, with panels looking at whether making music is an art or a craft, and what the new definition of success really is. We looked at the digital, with a social media surgery. We’ll brought  influential media figures, to give insight into how to get noticed, plus we hosted a real live supermodel during a look at the intersection between music and fashion. We held a panel for budding promoters, a look at how to protect your rights as a musician and a session on how to network more effectively without, well you know, looking like you’re actually networking.
We also welcomed Bill Harry, who exhibited part of his Mersey Beat collection which celebrated its incredible 50th anniversary in 2011; and Kevin Sampson, whose novel, Powder, had a world premiere at digital cinema FACT as well as the annual John Peel World Cup which featured teams raising money for The British Heart Foundation and our exhibition of poster art, Screenadelica.

And 2012 will be even better, so stay tuned.