Anyone in any doubt about the commercial importance of The X-Factor need look no further than the album and single release schedule for this Christmas. I had not fully appreciated how wide-reaching the show’s legacy was until recent chats with music retail contacts. It is staggering.

As in each of the last four years, whoever wins this year’s show is highly likely to have the number one single at Christmas time. The X-Factor/ Pop Idol/ Popstars: The Rivals winners have been number one for five of the last eight Christmases, and there is no reason why things will be different this year. (Prepare yourself, then, for John and Edward’s version of Stay Another Day).

However the Christmas single will be just the tip of the X-Factor iceberg this year. Indeed, it it largely irrelevant when you look at what else is going on. Eight years after it launched as Pop Idol, it is the show’s crop of past winners and runners-up that will dominate music sales in the so-called “golden quarter” in the run-up to Christmas.

Last year’s winner Alexandra Burke put her debut album out last month, while Leona Lewis – the Grammy-nominated singer who won X-Factor in 2006 – releases her second album on November 16. Meanwhile JLS, the boy band who were last year’s runners-up and already have two MOBO awards under their belts, release their debut album next week. And then there’s Cheryl Cole. The X-Factor judge and member of Girls Aloud – who won 2002’s Popstars: The Rivals – is currently number one in both the single and the album charts.

Between them these performers are expected to shift millions and millions of albums over the next two months. In the public’s mind they are serious artists, rather than the winners of a TV reality show.

But the bankability of the X-Factor alumni is only part of the show’s commercial allure. Record companies have started to realise that putting established artists on the show as mentors and performers can have a massive impact on sales. Artists with new albums to plug – from Bon Jovi to Robbie to Whitney to Michael Buble – now appear on a weekly basis. Gennaro Castaldo, a spokesman for HMV and a guru on sales trends, says that artists who appear on the show can expect a “doubling or trebling” of sales on the back of their performance.

The reason is simple. In an increasingly fragmented media world, the X-Factor is one of the only mass-market platforms left for getting an artist ‘out there’.

“With the demise of the likes of Top of the Pops and other ‘mass-market’ media, The X-Factor has become pretty much the only platform for mainstream rock and pop artists to reach a family audience, especially as its transmission coincides with the run-up to Christmas, when most major albums are released. We tend to see an immediate boost to sales of these albums and singles also – initially via download, which happens almost instantaneously as the programme is still going out, and then for much of the rest of the week and beyond in terms of physical sales both instore and online,” says Castaldo.

Artists’ back catalogues can also prosper. For example after Buble appeared on the show, sales of his 2007 album Call Me Irresponsible rocketed. It is back into this week’s top 40 as the highest chart climber.

Castaldo explains: “When you have upto 15m viewers at any one time, it’s become really key for many artists to get on the show if they want to connect with the family audiences that are so important to Christmas gift-purchasing. Artists can not only get a boost to sales, especially if they are launching their album that week, but can achieve the kind of critical mass that gets their album into the top 10 or 20 and keeps it there all the way through to Christmas.”

“The X Factor has become a real ‘water cooler’ topic for Monday mornings, when people are back at work, and – of course – featured artists can benefit from extensive press coverage also, so the advantages of appearing in the series can be huge. Labels and retailers are obviously aware of this, and can plan their marketing and merchandising accordingly, resulting in further synergies that boost album sales even more.”

The juggernaut will only grow over the next few years. Sir Philip Green, the billionaire Topshop owner, has teamed up with The X-Factor’s Simon Cowell to launch some sort of television entertainment joint venture. Details should be announced in the coming weeks, but the secret venture is expected to transform talent shows (or their winners) into global merchandising brands. Neither man does anything by half.

Having said all this, winning The X-Factor is no guarantee of automatic success. I wonder how many records Steve Brookstein, Michelle McManus or Leon Jackson have sold over the last year?

Venue owners and musicians said it would put an end to a six-year battle against legislation they said stifled London’s live music scene.

Ministers yesterday announced plans to allow small venues such as pubs and wine bars to put on live music without a licence for less than 100 people.

Currently, venues have to apply for a licence for any kind of performance, including a pianist playing background music in a restaurant. Owners and musicians say this puts venues off holding gigs.

The proposals were debated by chairman of the culture, media and sport select committee John Whittingdale, shadow arts minister Ed Vaizey and representatives from the Musicians’ Union. During yesterday’s meeting, ministers admitted the law had been heavy-handed.

If the proposed changes to the 2003 Licensing Act make it through a public consultation, they could take effect within months.

Phil Renaud, manager of The Slaughtered Lamb pub in Barbican, said the change would encourage more pubs to put on gigs. “It would make things a lot simpler,” he said.

Charles Alexander, 63, of Tooting Bec, has played jazz guitar at small London venues for 35 years. He said the amount of work he gets fell by a third since 2003 as venues cannot afford to apply for a licence.

A Department for Culture Media and Sport spokesman said: “This could make it easier for small venues to make a contribution to London’s night-time economy.”

Despite the brutal financial hit that budding brides and their grooms take, the Scottish Exclusive Wedding Event is bucking the recessionary trend of downsizing and is now one of the largest expos in Scotland, attracting over 125 companies to the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow yesterday alone. It’s also the longest-running event of its kind in Scotland.

Even though gender roles have shifted dramatically in recent decades, wedding days are still very much a female dominion.

Apart from a few down-trodden men, trailing on the heels of their eager partners, most attendees at this “exclusive” marriage event were women looking to make sure their wedding day was as special as it could possibly be, and willing to look at hundreds of dresses, listen to the auditions of five ropey wedding bands and contemplate cakes costing up to a grand.

The recession hasn’t ruined Scotland’s appetite for weddings, according to organiser Marlene Cunningham, a single, excitable woman with a wild tangle of thick black hair. This is the 16th marriage event she has staged and this time a record number of exhibitors have badgered her for a spot. With about 6000 people expected through the doors, she suggested marriage was as much in vogue as it ever has been.

She said: “Women are more in control of their wedding now and they are more discerning. Because they contribute half of the household income, brides have clear ideas about what they want and know exactly what they’re looking for.”

Her confidence in the wedding market was such that she decided to “take one step ahead of the doom and gloom” and invest heavily in the latest version of the show.

According to the staff of the many stalls at the show, business is booming. Most reported that the early parts of this year were quiet, but the summer has been busier than ever.

Most companies that cater to the huge wedding industry are small, which may actually make them able to cope better with changing economic circumstances.

I brought two very different 28-year-old women to the event in an effort to help draw back the veil on modern marriage.

The first, my girlfriend, is a bookish, chic and understated English teacher who is, I hope, committed and monogamous. The other, club promoter Fran Eastwood, is a self-described wild child: single, unwilling to settle down and flamboyant in both her sexuality and fashion sense. Both are cynical about marriage, particularly the neatly packaged, commercialised versions on offer at the show.

“I only know one happily married couple,” said Eastwood. “But they’re swingers. So perhaps that’s the key to happiness. I think it’s unrealistic to think that people can stay monogamous for ever. In fact, I don’t believe in love and monogamy. Weddings are more about showing off your money and being the centre of attention for a day. It’s like being the star of your own reality TV show.”

Contemplating a wedding cake festooned with suggestively shaped flowers, she added: “Who would ever want to dress in white and spend hundreds of pounds on one of these cakes? If I ever got married, I’d want a cake with skulls on it, a black dress and Slayer as the band.”

My girlfriend, who has a calmer outlook on life, said: “To most people of our generation, the sort of marriage on offer at this show is alien. Materialistic weddings just aren’t romantic. All the money you spend on a wedding could be spent on holidays or getting a new flat. Why waste it on a wedding?”

Both were scornful of the cheesier aspects of wedding days, something clearly reflected this weekend by a showcase of bands called things like Riffreshing and Funktion Sweet, two of them taking it in turn to bleed the life out of Duffy’s already anaemic hit Mercy and another turning Paul Weller’s ballad You Do Something To Me into a smoochy mush, punctuated by farting saxophone solos.

These cliches may turn trendy women cold, but weddings are changing to cater to a new generation.

The dress colour that most Scottish brides pick has shifted from pure white to a duller ivory, perhaps reflecting the fact that virgin brides are a rarity at secular weddings. To hammer home this point, sexy brides-to-be are now able to get saucy photos of themselves taken by Beautifully Boudoir, who will either lend women lingerie or let them pose in the nude.

Seona Misumi, who runs Beautifully Boudoir, was standing by a large picture of herself in the buff, knees and arms carefully positioned to preserve her modesty. She explained: “Our pictures are gifts given to husbands by their wives-to-be. We can airbrush them slightly, but we never Photoshop women until they’re barely recognisable. Women find our portraits empowering and men love them.”

Regardless of changing tastes, couples are still queuing up – and saving up – to tie the knot. Lyndsey Tierney, 25, and her boyfriend Jamie Murphy, 23, are already planning for their own big day in 2011.

She said: “We’ll be spending at least £20,000. Spending is a way of making the day special and showing your love.”

He said: “I wouldn’t have chosen to come here but it’s good to be able to consider our choices. There’s a lot of pressure to get things right.”

REACH OUT – NOW and call 01702 427100, email michael@entertainers.co.uk or log on to www.easytheatres.com to bring this fantastic show exclusively to your venue or event.

Celebrating its 20th Anniversary in 2010, Jazz Connection performs a special and exciting live show. This show is a tribute to the music of Louis Prima. In 2010 we will be celebrating the 100th Birthday of Louis Prima.

Now available for Jazz Clubs and Festivals in the UK for bookings in 2010 !
Periods:
7 – 11 April 2010
28 August – 11 September 2010

Jazz Connection has performed in the UK @ Bude Jazz Festival, Birmingham Jazz Festival, Isle of Wight Jazz Festival and many Jazz Clubs.

Jazz Connection is a true follower of the Jumpin’ Jive style that hit America’s black postwar population. With songs from Louis Jordan, Louis Prima and Louis Armstrong, like ‘’Is you is or is you ain’t my baby’’, ‘’Just a gigolo’’ and ‘’Someday you’ll be sorry”, they bring a revival of the best and brightest star performers from these exciting years.

Founded in ‘jazzy’ hometown Breda, Jazz Connection is running like a train, swinging and rolling through Europe with their Jazz & Jive show. They have performed at major festivals and clubs in Holland (since 1990 Breda Jazz Festival), toured in UK, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland and Poland as well as in the Middle East and Asia.

While most performers and producers have seen their fortunes nosedive by more than ten per cent, a select handful have escaped the worst of the recession, figures from the 2009 Sunday Times Rich List show.

Poorly performing investments and the slump in property prices have led to huge estimated losses, with Sir Elton John’s value down 26 per cent, Sir Tom Jones down 24 per cent, and Simon Fuller, the music mogul behind Pop Idol down 33 per cent.

Of the top 50 music millionaires only seven have avoided losing a chunk of their wealth, with only three – Cowell, the Gallagher brothers, and Judy Craymer, the Mamma Mia producer – posting an increase.

Craymer, whose Abba stage show and film have grossed more than $2.5 billion worldwide, increased her fortune by 29 per cent to £75 million, according to the Rich List.

Mamma Mia, starring Meryl Streep, is the biggest grossing film of all time in the United Kingdom, ahead of Titanic and the Harry Potter series. The DVD was also the fastest selling this country has ever seen, with an estimated one in four households owning a copy.

Philip Beresford, the Rich List compiler, said: “Some people think she might be worth more than £100 million, but we’re a bit more conservative because she doesn’t own all of her production company. There is huge value in the Mamma Mia brand.”

The continuing success of Simon Cowell’s talent shows, X Factor and Britain’s Got Talent, have earned him a seven per cent wealth increase.

As artists signed to his Syco record label, including Leona Lewis, have also dominated the charts, Cowell’s fortune is vlaued at £120 million, up from £112 million, ranking him equal 15th in the list of wealthiest music millionaires.

Noel and Liam Gallagher, whose band Oasis released their seventh studio album, Dig Out Your Soul, last year, are reckoned to have increased their worth 16 per cent from £45 million to £52 million.

The top three are unchanged from last year. Clive Calder, the founder of Zomba Records, once a home to Britney Spears, is rated the most wealthy music millionaire, with an unchanged wealth of £1.3 billion. In 2002 he sold his company for £1.24 billion.

Second is Lord Lloyd-Webber, with an unchanged fortune of £750 million. Sir Paul McCartney clings on to third place, despite losing an estimated £60 million, bringing his wealth to £440 million.

Among the young music millionaires, defined as those under 30, Amy Winehouse’s fortune is estimated to have dropped 50 per cent to £5 million after speculation about her personal life.

Cheryl Cole, the Girls Aloud singer and X Factor judge, and her footballer husband Ashley, are new entries on the young list, with an estimated wealth of £13 million.

Joining the couple as another new entry on the list is Duffy, the Brit Award winning singer, with an estimated wealth of £4 million.

Dhani Harrison, son of George, the former Beatle, and his family, is rated the wealthiest young music millionaire, with a total wealth of £140 million.

Mr Beresford said: “We’ve all got to be very sober this year. It’s the first time I’ve ever had to do a rich list in a severe recession, some say near-depression. The biggest surprise looking at the whole music sector is the absence of any seriously rich young rock artists.

“It’s just the same old wrinkly rockers, but their income has changed to coming from touring. I presume it’s because record companies have become wiser and sharper in recent years and don’t give the same deals they used to.”

The full 2009 Sunday Times Rich List will be released on Sunday. The 112-page magazine charts the value of the assets in the country’s wealthiest individuals.

1 Clive Calder £1,300m

2 Lord Lloyd-Webber £750m

3 Sir Paul McCartney £440m

4 Sir Cameron Mackintosh £350m

5 Simon Fuller £300m

6 Sir Mick Jagger £190m

7 Sting £180m

8 Sir Elton John £175m

8 Keith Richards £175m

10 Olivia and Dhani Harrison £140m

10 Sir Tim Rice £140m

Only Two News Sponsor Packages available on www.beatlesradio.com the #1 online Beatles Radio Station playing the Beatles, Solos, Covers & more, reaching over 400,000 unique listeners per month.
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Confirmed panels include
The Touring Game
The primary purpose of touring has traditionally been to promote record sales and generate comprehensive media coverage in a controlled environment. But with the record industry in flux, tour support in short supply and a surfeit of festival activity, does the old model need a rethink? This panel brings together agents, promoters, record executives, merchandisers and the PR community to discuss core strategies driving this vital sector.

Breaking and Entering
The emerging artiste sector continues to thrive with a consistently high level of interest from radio, TV and brands. With the live industry almost exclusively responsible for producing the music industry?s new talent, this panel will examine the key factors to maintaining its vibrancy.

The Producers
From sound, lighting, staging and transportation, production has always been an inherent part of creating the live experience and British companies have been world leaders in these sectors for decades. This session will examine the process of getting a major show on the road, from conception through development to the build and performance.

Tomorrow’s World
With the term 360 rapidly falling out of common usage, Live Nation’s innovative multiple-stream deals apart, what does tomorrow hold? Meanwhile the evolving dynamics of ticketing, a growing awareness of environmental issues and the success of arena residencies are also having a significant impact on the landscape.

See www.liveuksummit.com for more panel information

To Hire a Wedding Band    

 
Sponsors and supporters

Among delegates attending last year were concert and event promoters, venue operators, festival organisers, ticketing agencies , artiste managers and agents, live music-focused media, brand and marketing specialists, equipment and production service providers, national and local government representatives and a host of other live music-associated companies.

For more information or to register, visit www.liveuksummit.com or
contact Adam Klein at 020 7224 2442 or adam@liveuk.com
You have received this information as you or your company is an entrant in Showcase – The International Music Business Guide.

We are sending this information to those whom we feel may be interested in attending the conference.

You have the right to opt out of this service at any time. To unsubscribe, please reply to this email with the subject line ‘unsubscribe from emails – third party’

Is it time for corporate entertainment events to become more experiential?
Pete Roythorne looks at how experiential marketing techniques can help meeting and conference planners take their internal events to the next level.

MIA: Venues cutting margins to keep quality catering affordable.
The majority of venues are taking the brunt of the impact of increasing food prices and not passing it on to their customers, according to a recent survey by the MIA.