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Shanghai’s Electronic Music Conference Attracts DJ Superstars

Some of the most major moments from IMS Asia-Pacific 2016 revealed some long unanswered questions about the electronic music scene in the China and the region, and presents an ever more coherent understanding of where it is heading.

Highlights at IMS Asia-Pacific

Highlights at IMS Asia-Pacific. Skrillex in panel discussion at IMS Shanghai.

International Music Summit (IMS) comes together in a two-day conference discussing some of the most vital issues affecting the music industry in Asia-Pacific. Its topics focus on the exponential growth of the streaming, technology and festival market within the electronic dance genre. The end of the conference also signifies the beginning of a two-day electronic music festival STORM Festival featuring Alesso, Hardwell, Afrojack and Skrillex.

EVP Insights of BBC Worldwide David Boyle opened both days of IMS presenting surprising and insightful statistics about electronic music in the Asia-Pacific region. In his research for the popularity of EDM, he discovered that searches for “EDM” had gone up 26x from Google analytics between 2012-2016 alone. This means that it is more likely that the actual statistics are much higher due to China’s Great Firewall ban that limits most of their population from using the search platform.

For David Boyle’s presentation, click here.

China has gone hyper in their search for the next ‘superstar’. In its effort to find the next talent, the country has gone through a surge in televised reality shows revealed by Co-Founder of AFEM Kurosh Nasseri on the ‘Addressing the Challenges of Asia-Pacific’ panel. “It’s much more interesting to find the first Chinese superstar than to market and sell already existing superstars,” he said.

Other participating panelist includes Arsit Prachaseri (CEO, AG Productions, Thailand), Christian Rijanto (Co-Founder, Managing Partner, Ismaya Group, Indonesia), Dennis De Bruin (CEO, Alda Events Asia, Netherlands), Maggie Yu (VP, Brand Director, Adidas, China), Nick Matthews (Agent, Coda, UK) and Sunny L (Director, Music Fest Asia & Xin Wang Group, HK & China).

In the ‘Hot Trend of Asia: Social Networks – Live Broadcast & Music Apps panel saw leaders of both Eastern and Western broadcasting platforms discuss the rise of the broadcast and technology revolving the social networks in Asia. The panel includes discussion among music executives from Tencent, dART, KuGou and Baidu Music.

For the first time, OWSLA is teaming up with IMS Asia-Pacific for the Skrillex’s very first Boiler Room appearance. Dubbed as the most viewed and highest streamed Boiler Room ever, this popular platform returns to Shanghai after its record-breaking launch with Disclosure in China not so long ago. The stream is available here.

Skrillex’s Team at OWSLA shared the stage to discuss how the brand has grown over the years and how their vision and creativity took off in Asia. The discussion includes the presence of Skrillex, manager Tim Smith, OWSLA General Manager Blaise DeAngelo and AM Only’s Lee Anderson. They also shared experiences recording in Korea, the influence of Japan, synchs with Chinese film studios and touring strategy for SE Asia.

There are many ways I could quantify the ways we’ve grown, but that’s boring. For me, it’s been most exciting to watch the evolution of the brand. It’s been exciting for us to colourise that. It feels like OWSLA has a personality, a soul,” said Blaise DeAngelo, General Manager of OWSLA.

Alesso and Jolin came together on stage ‘In Conversation’ to discuss the solution to closing the gap between East and West in electronic music. They have also top some of the most exciting announcement of the conference when they revealed their new collaboration called ‘I Wanna Know’. “I’ve never remixed a song that was in a different language besides English. It was really cool, to be honest,” said Alesso.

IMS Shanghai: Jolin and Alesso announce new collaboration 'I Wanna Know'

IMS Shanghai: Jolin and Alesso announce new collaboration ‘I Wanna Know’

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