Music Conference and Festival
Andy Copping is Download Festival’s booker and promoter and Live Nation’s head of UK touring, which includes promoting shows for the likes of Beyoncé and Jay-Z.
Read an interview with Andy from SMILEfest 2013: Inteview with Andy Copping
Click through the gallery above. Photos from SMILEfest 2012 with Zoe Ball, Briggy Smale, Alabama 3, Carl Loben, Oliver Behzadi, and many other industry experts.
Briggy Smale is BBC Radio 1 former entertainment news presenter. During that role, Briggy interviewed huge bands like Kings of Leon, Kylie, Snoop Dogg and Fatboy Slim. She also reported from festivals and events like Glastonbury, The Oscars, The Brits, and The MTV Awards. Briggy has also worked as the programme manager at Juice FM.
Briggy is awarded with a Visiting Fellowship at Southampton Solent University where she also mentored our music and journalism students.
Lauren Pritchard is a musician from Jackson, Tennessee based in London and professionally known as LOLO. She performed the lead role of the Broadway show ‘Spring Awakening’ in New York before signing a publishing deal with Sony/ATV and meeting Eg White with whom she recorded and co-wrote songs before being signed to Island Records in 2009.
Lauren is most known for being featured on the single ‘Miss Jackson’ by Panic! at the Disco. She has also opened their live concerts and toured with them.
Jim Prime is the founding member and keyboardist of the band Deacon Blue. Simon has 30 years of industry experience that began in the ‘80s on an American tour with Altered Images followed by a number of years and albums with John Martyn. He has also worked as a Musical Director for Cumbernauld Theatre. Deacon Blue have 17 top 40 hits and 3 number one albums to date. Jim was signed to Columbia Records (Sony) for over 15 years.
Jim has recently headlined Glastonbury, Liverpool Echo Arena, Belladrum and opened ‘Last Night of the Proms in the Park’ in Hyde Park.
Jim has also worked with Bryan Adams, Jean Jaacques Goldman and written and recorded music for the film of William McIlvanney’s Dreaming and Channel 4’s Against the Tide, a documentary on George Orwell.
Gary Mulholland is the author of the highly acclaimed books “This is Uncool”, “Fear of Music”, “Popcorn” and “Stranded at the Drive-In” and has contributed frequently to The Guardian, BBC, Observer, Uncut and Time Out.
Jim Mawdsley has operated as an independent music promoter in the North East of England since the mid eighties. He has promoted indoor events that range from 50 capacity pub gigs to 10,000 capacity dance events in arenas. In addition to taking on a role that has built Generator into the UKs leading Music Development Agency, he continues to develop Evolution, the Newcastle Gateshead based music festival which boasts attendances of 30,000 a day at the May Bank Holiday Weekend Event.
Mark Hobrough is an experienced music industry professional, currently managing songwriters & artists and acting as an industry consultant for both established and new enterprise at Swansfield Music. He has previously worked as a Music Consultant at Shazam and at 1917 Corp, a music marketing consultancy specialising in promoting to music and creative arts students in the UK. Clients include many UK major labels and independents as well as some film companies.
Mark also acts as a consultant including recent campaigns for Island Records and works within the music education sector with Music Business Training and Etude Music. He has also moderated industry panels for Generator, Music Futures, DMF Digital and others.
Nick Halkes is a music industry executive known for signing and breaking dance act The Prodigy. Halkes was one of the founders of independent record label XL Recordings where he worked with acts such as House of Pain, SL2 and Liquid before taking up a position as a director at EMI and launching the Positiva label. The Positiva label is now home to David Guetta and Deadmau5 amongst others.
Maria Forte is the Co-Founder and Director of Public Affairs at V2 and works on digital rights management for Radiohead/ sample clearance for The Prodigy.
Maria has worked in the music industry for three decades. She has worked at Virgin Music (Publishers) Ltd and with many contemporary bands/writers including The Police; The Human League; Culture Club; Soul II Soul; The Clash; Stereo MC’s and The Prodigy. She’s also worked at EMI Music Publishing running the copyright department as well as establishing the sampling department. She continued to work with the Virgin Music catalogue as well as the rich and varied catalogue belonging to EMI.
n 1996, she was a co-founder and Director of Commercial Affairs at V2 Music Publishing Ltd., Richard Branson’s second venture into music publishing. In July 2006 she created Maria Forte Music Services Ltd. Her clients include Warner Chappell music, for the implementation of their pan European Digital Rights Initiative.