ASCAP Expo Anyone?

[leopard]

Hey Silverorlead,The trick is to AVOID the seminars with "famous" people and attend the stuff you can learn from. These people made it big when a label spent millions promoting them--certainly a different time and place. They can't possibly impart much knowledge about the current reality to those of us trying to make it without that kind of backing. Also, you mention spending over $200 to attend the Expo. Do you not pay anything to belong to Taxi each year? Just curious.

[silverorlead]

Hey leopard!I did indeed try to walk a middle ground, picking the panels I felt would be most applicable to my career and where I'm at. And indeed there were some interesting panels on publishing and licensing especially, although mostly on the technical aspects of publishing and licensing, and not on how to get a publisher / what and who publishers are looking for / how to go about self-publishing. I found TAXI's classes on the same subjects a bit more tailored to the attendees and their careers rather than general information one could find in a book.If anything, the problem is that there are so many famous ASCAP members! As a wonderful PRO representing what amounts to half the industry, they want to offer up big names to people, so the majority of the panels were celebrities or else companies selling a service or product. The problem of course is just as you said, the majority of the people on the panels flat out said, "I'm sure glad I'm not starting out today." Although I do have to say that Tom DaSilva, the head of ASCAP Pop / Rock, was the person in there representing the opposite viewpoint, who was inspiring and full of enthusiasm for building a career today using the internet and technology, and my favorite panel of the weekend was called, "The Meeting," where he sat down with a young artist and a panel of industry pros, a manager, producer, accountant, and publisher to hypothetically work out next steps in her career. That was a wonderful wonderful panel and I wish there had been much more along those lines.And like I said, for concert music / jazz / musical theatre / opera there were great specialized panels that deal with those very specific genres and really separate industries in some ways, which are invaluable for people in those niches.So I hope I don't sound like I'm trashing the Expo, because looking back there were some great things about it that I'm glad I got, but I think Ted put it best in pointing out that it's a few hundred for the plane ticket, and then a few hundred for the Expo, which is the real cost when debating attendance. With TAXI, your membership fee pays for your TAXI usage already, so in debating whether or not to come to the Rally, it's not really an expense to consider since you've already paid it for separate services.(I'm not suggesting ASCAP offer the Expo for free, otherwise all of their bajillion members would come pouring in, since ASCAP membership is already free! I'm just pointing out that the expense is a factor when considering Expo attendance.)So another long post for me about the Expo. My nightmare is that someone from ASCAP (of which I'm a proud proud member) is referred to this thread and blacklists me. So I'm trying to be as evenhanded and honest as possible Hope it helps,Bri

[alsemas]

I was at both meetings and think that it's amazing that these people are willing to take time out of their busy schedule to educate us. I think the meetings were pretty equal and really cool, however I spent about $600 more on the last meeting verses the TAXI convention. Hollywood is very pricey and simply not worth it. In the future I think I'll stick to the TAXI conventions and save myself the money towards new equipment, etc... By the way, I recently got a publishing deal on two of my songs because of TAXI, AND was anyone in the Grand Ballroom at the #$@^&*+* meeting on Saturday when an audience member asked the panel of music supervisors if they heard of TAXI? ALL of the panel members said they liked TAXI and used them often. I thought that was really cool and it assured me my money spent at TAXI over the years has been worth every penny. Very Cool!!!! Thank you TAXI, way to hustle… Looking forward to the next Road Rally in my area.