Interview with World Music Expo WOMEX Director Alex Walter

 

World Music Expo WOMEX is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year. What started as a small gathering of enthusiastic world music professionals has grown into the largest international world music professional event with coveted showcases, a large trade show, conference and workshops and influential world music awards.

The 2014 edition of the conference will be taking place later this month in historic Santiago de Compostela, Spain from Wednesday, October 22 – Sunday, October 26.

The current WOMEX Director is Alex Walter. He was born in in Ulm, located on the River Danube in southern Germany. Alex moved to Stuttgart and later, in 2001, relocated to Berlin. He studied social sciences at Berlin’s Humboldt University with a one-year stopover at Universidad Complutense de Madrid. While in college he organized concerts and worked as a private drum teacher. He was WOMEX’ Content & Programs Manager until he was named WOMEX director. Alex talks about the current state of the organization with World Music Central’s Angel Romero.

I remember the first WOMEX conferences had quite a few independent record labels. With the demise of the recording industry, what types of professionals attend WOMEX now?

As a rough overview, in 2013 the delegates have been the following: 2,250 delegates and 1,260 companies from 90 countries; 800 concert and festival bookers, tour promoters and venues; 560 labels, publishers and distributors; 680 booking agents, 560 managers and 270 producers; and 300 national and international journalists, including 130 radio broadcasters.

 

 

In addition to the annual conference and showcase, WOMEX has partnerships with other organizations. Which are these and what type of support does WOMEX provide?

WOMEX has long-standing expertise in producing and consulting diverse events across continents: training workshops, conferences, showcase festivals, cultural markets, and platforms for networking, education and IT projects. As a result, WOMEX has now opened a new department of Consultancy & Special Projects. In that frame, WOMEX does have several partnerships, for instance, since 2009 we have programmed a stage annually at SXSW. Furthermore WOMEX did six editions of Porto Musical in Recife, Brazil, a music and technology convention, a major gateway for the Brazilian music market and a networking platform for Brazilian professionals.

We are also a partner of Atlantic Music Expo (AME) in Cabo Verde that brings together artists and music professionals from the islands, Africa and both sides of the Atlantic. There is also a new WOMEX partnership with China’s international music industry expo and festival, Sound of the Xity (SOTX).

WOMEX continues to have an itinerant conference model. Do you intend to keep moving the conference to different locations throughout Europe?

As WOMEX delegates do like to travel and visit different destinations and locations the journey will continue with changing host cities. With its office in Berlin, WOMEX itself has always been a Europe-based event with a global view.

The showcases are a major component of WOMEX. How do you select the judges, the so-called seven samurai?

The WOMEX team travels a lot and each team member brings back many impressions and of course new/old names that are part of the community. As a result there is an ever-growing pool of potential Samurai with different kinds of expertise and profiles in the world music business, which actually is an important criterion: each year we aim to have a balanced Jury with different tastes, musical background and various working fields in the industry.

 

 

Please describe the showcase artist selection process. What’s the process after the judges are selected?

The task of the Jury is a challenging one. A lot of honor and a lot of work! They need to work through all proposals that have been proposed via an online system. Once that is done they meet in person in Berlin to discuss their pre-selections, re-listen to CDs and then have the hard task to tailor a program that is broad in musical styles, variety of territories, a balance of traditional and electronic, from small to big bands, and so on.

In addition to the quality of the music, do judges take into account if artists will be able to travel to Europe and get visas?

Visas always are an issue and unfortunately the situation on visa access has not improved over the last years – rather the opposite. The Jury always goes for the music in the first place, that’s essential – but are aware of whether a visa would be needed or not.

Do you have any economic studies about the business generated by the world music industry?

We haven’t commissioned any formal study ‘in-house’ at the macro-economic level – but, yes, this is a crucial area, and one that our colleagues in the folk and classical music areas also monitor. More specifically we have a set of ‘economic factors’ (showing the economic impact of WOMEX itself) that we use and discuss with our potential local partners when we work towards a new host city.

 

 

How can a city apply to host WOMEX? And what do you look for in a host city?

In general every city that is interested can do an application. We are working on the basis of a call for host cities. The setting of WOMEX is quite complex and the local structure needs to fulfill certain needs. Besides of course being an attractive destination for the delegates and artists as such, the city also needs to have the necessary number and size of venues, good accessibility, a certain number of hotel rooms and other things on the ‘practical’ list.

Are there countries or areas of the world underrepresented?

As WOMEX is a Europe-based event, the biggest bunch of delegates comes from European countries – about 65% at the moment. In general an increase of delegates from Africa and Asia would be nice. We would not call it underrepresented but it would be good if more professionals from those areas could make their presence felt at the event. Travelling costs certainly are a factor but the objective as well has to be to improve mechanisms and structures to bring their great musical potential to the international market. Hopefully more and more countries/regions set up international strategies in that direction to support their music professionals.

 

 

Is WOMEX doing any type of outreach to bring more participants from other parts of the world?

Yes, absolutely. The WOMEX team is travelling a lot throughout the year to different events, conferences, meetings and festivals around the world. With those travels we meet a lot of new people who hopefully become part of the WOMEX community as well when they realize what a great place for networking it is.

 

 

What is your vision for WOMEX in the next years?

With now 20 successful editions we hope to continue to be the most important networking platform for our community. And of course to be committed, welcoming, and fresh and to be open and ready for new formats in the permanent changing music business.

What advice would you give to new world music artists?

Stay authentic and at the same time carefully think about what your unique selling points are. Use the uncountable advantages of the internet and…never stop rehearsing!

Thank you.

Thank you!

For more information about WOMEX visit www.womex.com