Speakers

Ciaran Bollard
Ciaran Bollard, 37, is CEO and co-founder of MUZU TV. Since the inception of the company Ciaran has been responsible for raising investment, negotiating key strategic partnerships, label and management deals,  rights bodies and Advertising Agencies to grow and develop the business over the past 7 years. Prior to MUZU TV, Ciaran worked in a number of senior sales and marketing roles within the online industry for over 13 years. Ciaran worked for online companies including Skillsoft, formerly SmartForce, for 8 years holding various roles including Country Manager and Sales Director driving revenue growth and strategic accounts.
Hear from Ciaran during the Lightening Talks, 10.20am – 11am

Niall Byrne
Niall Byrne is a music lover, music blogger and music journalist. His own blog Nialler9 is the most read irish music blog, with over 35,000 people visiting monthly, and it has won pretty much every irish music web award going , including being voted 5^th best music blog in the world in 2010. He was on the judging panel for the 2008 Choice Music Prize – the annual Irish album of the year, is a digital columnist for The Irish Independent’s Day and Night magazine, and is both web designer and editor for online music magazine state.ie
Hear from Niall at Meet the Media, 12-1pm

Jim Carroll
Jim Carroll writes about music and the music business for The Irish Times and compiles the award-winning On the Record blog for the newspaper. He also presents a weekly radio show The Far Side on Dublin’s Phantom FM and hosts the Banter discussion panels. Previously, he worked in the music business in Ireland, the UK and US in the areas of label management, A&R and press, as well as working as a journalist and editor for numerous publications here and abroad.
Hear from Jim at Meet the Media, 12-1pm

Cian Flynn
An avid music lover Cian has been promoting alternative gigs in Sligo for over 8 years, most recently devising and promoting the Tilt Shift season of gigs at McGarrigles with Shane Finan, but he’s worked with just about every live venue space in Sligo over the years. Aimed squarely at lovers of quality music in the right environment, Tilt-Shift brought an array of both national and international acts to Sligo that kicked off with the awesome talent of Brendan Benson of The Raconteurs, and included shows from O Emperor, RSAG & The Kilo 1977, John Shelly and the Creatures (who have since been renamed Master & Dog) Camera Obscura, Ivan St. John and Milk Kan, Jinx Lennon, The Gorgeous Colours and Jeffrey Lewis and the Junkyard
Hear from Cian at the Lightening Talks, 10.20-11am

Jessica Fuller
Jessica Fuller is the music co-ordiantor of Music Generation Sligo, one of the first three counties that were recently selected for participation in the National Music Education programme, supported by U2 and Ireland Funds, which aims to help children and young people access vocal and instrumental tuition in their locality.  Music Generation will provide seed funding to establish local services for the next three years and details of the Music Generation Sligo programme will be launched shortly, following a period of planning. Recruitment is currently underway for a panel of music tutors (see here for more info) which she will speak a little about on Thursday.  Jessica is also the founder and director of Still Point Productions/Platform Ireland (Ireland’s Arts Broadcasting Platform) and a manager for the irma trust.
Hear from Jessica at the Lightening Talks, 10.20-11am

Karl Geraghty
Formerly of Aiken, Karl is presently the music booker of The Workman’s Club in Dublin. Officially opening in September 2010, The Workmans was a hugely welcome addition to the Dublin music scene, and has since played host to such Irish and International acts as Imelda May, Dan Le Sac v Scroobious Pip, Anna Calvi, Damien Dempsey, CW Stone King, Lisa Hannigan to name a few. Villagers recorded a live album there and they were voted one of the Hot Press Venues of the year.
Hear from Karl at the How not to Get a Gig workshop from 11am – 12noon

Gugai
Gugai has been booking live music in Galway for about 15 years. About nine years ago, he established Strange Brew, one of the longest running clubnights in Ireland, which has been a keen supporter of the Irish alternative music scene. He is one of the owners of Róisín Dubh, and takes care of all the music bookings for that venue, as well as booking events into the Black Box, the Radisson Live Lounge and the Galway Arts Festival Big Top.
Hear from Gugai at the How not to Get a Gig workshop from 11am – 12noon

Jenny Huston
Radio presenter Jenny Huston presents weeknights on 2fm (Monday – Thursday 9pm -11pm) and has extensive radio and TV experience, including everything from daytime talk radio to global music events. From her arrival at RTE in 2003, following stints with Radio Kilkenny and then-legendary Dublin pirate, Phantom FM, Jenny quickly developed a reputation for her in-depth knowledge of rock history, while simultaneously giving a platform to emerging talent, both Irish and international. Her shows, a combination of indie rock, pop and electro have been established as the place to hear quality new alternative music on Irish radio, and she has twice been nominated for Best Irish DJ at The Meteor Awards.  A regular face and voice of the Irish Festival season Jenny broadcasts live from all the major festivals (SXSW, Oxegen, Electric Picnic, Heineken Green Energy, Arthurs Day).

In addition to her broadcasting work, Jenny is author of the book In Bloom: Irish Bands Now (2009).  With a foreword by Oscar-winner Glen Hansard, In Bloom celebrates the Irish musicians currently rocking the local and international music scenes through in-depth personal interviews.
Hear from Jenny at Meet the Media, 12-1pm

Keith Johnson
Keith is the Director of Marketing & Membership for IMRO – Ireland’s Music Rights Organisation- a national not-for-profit organisation.  that administers the performing right in copyright music in Ireland on behalf of its members (songwriters, composers and music publishers) and on behalf of the members of the international overseas societies that are affiliated to it. IMRO’s function is to collect and distribute royalties arising from the public performance of copyright works.  IMRO is also prominently involved in the sponsorship and promotion of music in Ireland. Every year it sponsors a large number of song contests, music festivals, seminars, workshops, research projects and showcase performances. Indeed, IMRO is now synonymous with helping to showcase emerging talent in Ireland. Keith is responsible, with FMC, for setting up the Irish showcases at International Music events like CMJ and SXSX, and the IMRO Showcase Tour and sampler CD in Ireland.
Hear from Keith at the Lightening Talks, 10.20am – 11am, and again for the IMRO Clinic during lunch

Jim Lawless
Jim is manger of The Coronas. Having never thought of music management as a career Jim fell in to his position more than chose it. He grew up with three of the band members in school and when they left school was asked to manage the band, then called Corona. Jim worked with the band all through college part-time, more of a hobby than anything else. It wasn’t until the band got signed to 3ú Records in their final year of college that Jim started to think of artist management as a career. Jim studied Business Management with Economics and Finance in Dublin’s Institute of Technology and worked in the manufacturing and construction sector before going to into artist management full-time.
Hear from Jim at the Route to Management workshop, 3-4pm

Ger McDonnell
Ger McDonnell is a producer/mixer/engineer whose credits include U2, Manic Street Preachers, Dido, Texas, Def Leppard, and Kasabian to name a few. Dublin born and bred, at the age of eight, he began to study orchestral percussion at the DIT College of Music. Having studied there for eight years, poised for a career in teaching, he decided instead to follow his long-harboured desire to be involved in the world of “making records”. Having served his time working as an assistant/trainee recording engineer at various studios around Dublin, and after a chance meeting with producer Mike Hedges, Ger went on to work extensively with Mike and various high profile artists such as U2 and The Cure on sessions in many of the best recording studios in the UK, France and Ireland.
Hear from Ger at the Home Recording 101 Workshop at 11am- 12noon

Stuart McLaughlin
Stuart is Chief Executive of Business to Arts, and one of the founding team of  Fund it, Ireland’s crowdfunding platform for creative ideas. Fund it was launched 7 months ago and has attracted over €300k of pledges from over 6,000 people. Stuart joined Business to Arts in 2007 having previously worked as Business Development Director with Accenture; Head of Outsourcing with CapGemini and Commercial Manager for Fujitsu. Stuart is Chair of the Lewis Glucksman Gallery at UCC in Cork, and sits on the board of Fishamble Theatre and the Brain Trust of the Science Gallery.
Hear from Stuart at Alternative Routes to Funding, 2.30-3pm

Una Mullally
Una Mullally is a journalist and broadcaster living in Dublin. She started out writing about music for the Event Guide for two years before moving to The Sunday Tribune where she worked initially as a reporter, then feature writer and eventually as a columnist for over five years up until the newspaper’s closure in 2011. She also presents Ceol ar an Imeall, an indie music show on TG4 currently in its third series. Post-Tribune, she is working as a freelance journalist The Irish Times and columnist with The Dubliner magazine. Having run the influential SoundCheck club night at SPY in Dublin for two years, she continues to DJ when something fun comes up.
Hear from Una at Meet the Media, 12-1pm

Trevor O’Shea
Trevor is one of the founders of Bodytonic, which runs club nights, festivals,artists, websites, labels and two venues -pub The Bernard Shaw and live venue/shop/cafe/gallery/studio Twisted Pepper. Calling themselves “Jack of all trades, master of none” Bodytonic exemplify the changes in the music industry model, and the need for diversification. Trevor will be focusing mainly on the label/artist management side of things for the Industry Day, as he manages three music labels; Scribble, Mr Jones and Pogo, but expect him to touch on all aspects of the Bodytonic world.
Hear from Tervor at the Go indie label workshop, 3-4pm

Steve Reddy
Steve works in Development for First Music Contact (FMC), which is a free information and advice resource for bands and musicians in Ireland. They have over thirty free factsheets on the industry available on their website, and are the main industry plug in for unsigned talent in Ireland. Funded by Arts Council, FMC runs the following project, all of which Steve will talk about on the day;

• Breakingtunes.com - on online music portal showcasing the best of Irish contemporary music in an easy to search setting for industry, artists and fans alike
• Music From Ireland - a cross industry and arts collective spearheaded by FMC and partnered by Culture Ireland and IMRO to showcase acts at international music festivals. It covers SXSW, CMJ, Midem, Canadian Music Week, Popkomm, Eurosonic, and The Great Escape.
• Now heading in to it’s 10^th year, The Hard Working Class Heroes festival has become the Irish independent music industry’s most telling barometer.  It is the best way to spot emerging acts as well as an opportunity to see more established artists perform in multiple venues over three nights in Dublin.

Hear from Steve at  the Get Involved presentation; 1.45pm-2.30pm

Alexis Vokos
Alexis runs The Delphi Label, a Dublin-based label and management for a small but slowly growing roster of artists with the same ethos which champions the artist/manager relationship as a partnership and collaboration and view all the tools and channels available in the online world as a huge opportunity.  Current artists are Deaf Joe and Sacred Animals.  Alexis got his start working in the industry in London, including at Stephen Budd Producer Management, Metropolis Studios and Music Week magazine, before joining Independent Sound Management (ISM) in London in 2003. Alexis was involved in the management of artists including Tunde (Lighthouse Family), Catherine Feeny and HAL, working on both Major and Independent album releases (Sony BMG, Rough Trade). In 2006, Alexis was closely involved in securing Catherine Feeny’s publishing deal with Warner Chappell, establishing Tallgrass Records and releasing Catherine’s album ‘Hurricane Glass’ independently before the album was licensed on to EMI and re-released in 2007.  He has lived in Dublin since 2008.
Hear from Alexis at the Go indie label workshop, 3-4pm

Mark Willis
Mark is one of the founders of Bluestack Records, which was established in Ireland in the Summer of 2010, when some good ideas and some good music came together.  Tired of hearing the same old commercial acts get all the limelight while artists they loved weren’t getting their music heard, a group of friends set up an independent label with the open-ended goal of promoting and supporting independent music.  They have grown since then into a wide network of affiliates and partners who all share a keen love of music.  Their philosophy is simple; fairness, quality and good taste.  We work with artists, promoters, producers, film-makers, photographers, designers, engineers and technicians who are interested in creating something that is original, interesting and can impact and resonate with their audience.  Bluestack represent Go Panda Go, The Casanova Wave and The Ambience Affair
Hear from Mark at the Go indie label workshop, 3-4pm