Showcase Festivals: Gatekeepers and Bridge Builders in the Music Industries

Abstract

Showcase festivals are industry events comprising artist showcases and conferences. It may be argued that showcase festivals are an understudied offline field, since their role in configuring and maintaining a festival-like arena and providing a meeting place for the music industries remains largely unexplored from a scholarly point of view, as well as underappreciated and underestimated within the mainstream academic community. Their purpose is to present artists hoping to attract the attention of the core audience: industry professionals looking for new talent to sign and represent. The article provides an empirical study of the Nordic showcase festival by:Larm using theories of gatekeeping, fields and capital.