INDUSTRY
Chicago is Giving Out Over 1,000 Free Lollapalooza Passes to Vaccinated Residents
Receiving the COVID-19 vaccine could punch your ticket to one of the nation’s most iconic music festivals. As the city enters its final reopening stage, Chicago’s health department has announced plans to give out 1,200 free single-day passes for Lollapalooza‘s 2021 edition to anyone who makes an appointment at select vaccination sites on June 26th. The promotion is part of the Protect Chicago Music Series, which offers free tickets to concerts for vaccinated residents. According to city officials, Chicago will transform four of its vaccination sites into “Lolla Day” events, each offering a live DJ, custom Lollapalooza-branded giveaways, and a pass to the festival. Those who have already been inoculated will also have a chance to secure a free ticket....
Entrepreneurs Seek to Bring Touch-Free Women’s Urinals to Music Festivals
From watching someone empty out their Camelback at a security checkpoint to patiently awaiting a basket of chicken tenders from a food truck, it’s no secret that music festivals are waiting games. But for women, lengthy lines take on a whole new meaning when it comes to going to the bathroom. In fact, according to a recent study, it can take up to 34 times longer for a woman to reach a portable toilet than it does for men. That’s where Hazel McShane and Amber Probyn come in. The two University of Bristol graduates are the co-founders of Peequal, a start-up seeking to get women back to the party from the bathroom faster than ever. Inspired by their experiences working at music festivals in the UK, their hands-free urinal is estimated to be six times speedier ...
Femi Falana charges Nigerian government to dialogue with agitators, secessionists
Nigeria’s foremost human rights lawyer, Mr Femi Falana (SAN) yesterday challenged the federal government to dialogue with various groups agitating for secession from the federation. Falana justified this demand on the premise that it “is on the roundtable the grievances can be sorted out” in the interest of peace, security and development He made this at the 25th anti-corruption situation room, which the Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA) organised in Lagos yesterday. Speaking on the subject, “Assessing The Fight Against Corruption,” said it was the promise to fight corruption that made Nigerians vote for President Muhammadu Buhari. The human right lawyer said it was the corruption in the system that culminated in agitating for secession, noting that it “is better for the fe...
High-Profile Music Publishers Have Filed a Lawsuit Against Roblox for Copyright Infringement
A new battleground is coming into focus in the ongoing clash between emerging tech companies and established music rights holders. Roblox has been hit with a hefty nine-figure lawsuit filed on behalf of a large collective of music publishers. Plaintiffs in the suit include one of the largest independent music publishers, Downtown Music Publishing, as well as Sony’s Kobalt Music Group, Universal Music Publishing, and high-profile artists such as deadmau5. The suit alleges that Roblox enabled its users to illegally stream copyrighted music across its platform. According to the $200 million complaint, Roblox sells players virtual boomboxes which effectively allow players to stream copyrighted, unlicensed music in the game. The gear has been available since 2015, but it was s...
ITF chief: President Buhari providing quality leadership skills
Industrial Training Fund The Director General of Industrial Training Fund (ITF), Joseph Ari, said President Muhammadu Buhari has provided quality leadership through Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Otunba Richard Adeniyi Adebayo and his counterpart, Amb. Mariam Yalwaji Katagum which has unleashed innovations and creativity of various agencies under their control. Ari in a press statement signed by Director, Public Affairs Department, Suleyol Fred Chagu, in Jos on Friday after the formal presentation of the ITF Mobile Android GSM smart phone to President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, credited the achievement to the inspirational leadership and support to the Ministers. He said the ITF mobile phone, which was comparable in quality to any other brand of Android...
Gareth Emery on Post-Pandemic Ticket Requests: “Guest List Is Closed”
Gareth Emery‘s guest list is officially closed. The dance music vet has taken to social media to blast those who requested free tickets to his new tour as music venues scramble to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of COVID-19. In an acerbic tweet shared today, Emery urged music fans to support their local venues, many of whom rely on ticket sales to save their businesses after succumbing to the financial pitfalls of the pandemic. “Since announcing a tour my inbox has been full of requests for free tickets,” Emery wrote. “And in normal times I’m usually the first to help someone out, and often throw random people on the list for a good reason.” “But not now,” he continued. “Clubs have been closed over a year. Many went bust. Others bar...
“Trashion”: This Woman Picks Up Your Trash at Music Festivals—Then Makes Art With It
Music festivals are some of the most magical, exciting, and glamorous spaces in the world. For a few days, music fans can come together for an indelible experience. They can dance to their favorite music, make new friends, fall in love, and live their lives to the fullest. But what happens when the festival ends? After festival-goers pack up their stuff, head out, and move on with their lives, people like Sophia Nielson are left to clean up the mess. At just 26 years of age, Nielsen operates her own company, WEgenerative, with the aim to educate people about waste. She promotes sustainability at music festivals by designing and implementing waste infrastructure, contracting with events, managing volunteers who pick up trash (usually the largest crew on the festival grou...
U.S. Congress Casts Doubt on Spotify’s Controversial “Discovery Mode” Feature
The controversy surrounding Spotify’s divisive “Discovery Mode” has not subsided since the streaming giant announced the initiative in late 2020. The feature offers some artists and record labels a chance to boost the rankings of their music in the platform’s playlisting algorithm—a crucial tool for exposure—in exchange for a reduced royalty rate. Considering the notion that royalties are already extremely low—fractions of one penny per stream, to be exact—the contentious “Discovery Mode” feature seems to make things even more difficult for artists hoping to get their music in front of as many people possible while earning fair compensation for their works. “Discovery Mode” has now come to the attention of Representative Jerrold Nadler (chair...
Did Elon Musk Just Back a Dogecoin Music Festival?
With three simple words, Elon Musk lit a fuse in the crypto community that could eventually lead to a Dogecoin-themed music festival: “Sounds kinda fun.” The comment came in response to a popular Dogecoin fan account who tweeted about the fictitious DogeFest, using a photo of a music festival stage edited with the token’s viral Shiba Inu meme imagery. He then started a thread to suggest what the festival would entail if it were real, such as a DJ set from Musk himself, who has long championed EDM and recently teased the sale of an NFT techno song. The page also suggested that DogeFest would require Dogecoin “as payment for everything.” Once Musk chimed in, legions of crypto supporters joined the conversation to conceptualize the fest. One said that t...
An Urgent Call for Harm Reduction in EDM: How to Keep You and the Rave Alive Post-Pandemic
“Nightlife always survives.” “It survived the great depression, and it survived the AIDs pandemic in the 80s,” Joseph J. Palamar, Associate Professor in the Department of Population Health at New York University Langone Medical Center, tells EDM.com. “Nightlife will always come back.” The terms of the world opening up after more than a year of isolation, loneliness, and tragedy are uncertain. But there’s something we know for sure: we love to dance with our friends. And for the first time in more than a year, that feels like a genuine—and imminent—possibility. As we write this piece, 39% of the U.S. population is fully vaccinated against COVID-19. It feels a bit easier every day to imagine that someday soon some of us will once again be sa...
A Pornographic, Anime-Themed Plugin is Stirring Controversy in Music Production Circles
A new distortion plugin that features sexually explicit anime imagery has the music production community divided. The Nani production tool was developed by Los Angeles-based company WXAudio, who has called it “the first obscene anime distortion plugin.” It features six modes of distortion with drive and color controls and a depiction of a female hentai (an overtly sexualized style of anime and manga) character. In a similar style to Dada Life’s infamous Sausage Fattener plugin, the character depicted in Nani reacts to performance on its digital knob control. As the drive knob is turned up on the plugin, the character loses more and more of her clothes, and if turned all the way up, her breasts become fully exposed. Naturally, the plugin has sparked some ...
New Grammy Award Rules Include Update to Dance/Electronic Category
Amid transformative times for the Grammy Awards, The Recording Academy has announced a slew of rule changes to be implemented in 2022. Following criticism of the organization’s controversial Nominations Review Committee, the metamorphosis of the Grammys took another step forward today after The Recording Academy shared a laundry list of updates to the award ceremony’s annual guidelines, including a change to the Dance/Electronic category. Billboard reports that the category formerly known as Best Dance Recording has now been renamed Best Dance/Electronic Recording. The change was reportedly made to align with its corresponding category related to albums, which has been called Best Dance/Electronic Album. Kaytranada won the Grammy Awards for Best Dance Recording and Best Da...
