07/11/18: UK Music’s Deputy CEO and Director of Public Affairs Tom Kiehl and Head of Parliamentary Affairs, Events and Diversity Felicity Oliver organised a talent pipeline roundtable at the Old Courts in Wigan on Wednesday.

_{Our second Greater Manchester City Region roundtable took place in Wigan on Wednesday}

Attendees considered a number of topics at the two hour session including barriers to embarking on careers in the music industry, support for music within schools and financial assistance to support talent.

UK Music has recently warned of the increasing reliance on “the bank of mum and dad” to sustain careers in the music industry following a recent survey indicating 46% of music creators receive financial help from friends and family to support their musical careers.

Participants debated whether schools need to have a better understanding of industry career routes and what support can be provided from local authorities for this. They also considered if there is a role for seed funding in Greater Manchester to provide more opportunities to develop talent at the pre-commercial phase and whether there are overseas models that can be adopted for the city region.

Mentoring and training for musicians and artists to better equip them with the right how to write forms for funding bids and developing steps to ensure feedback is delivered for unsuccessful applicants was also put forward by attendees in Wigan.

Co-Chair of the Greater Manchester music review Ged Doherty (Chair, BPI) chaired the roundtable. Participants included local Wigan MP Lisa Nandy, Peter Wadsworth (Strawberry Studios historian), Carolyn Baxendale (Bolton Music Service), Tim France (Salford University), Damian Morgan (BIMM), Alison Surtees (Manchester Digital Music Archive), Kate Lowe (Brighter Sounds), Tom Besford (Folk Expo), Linda Merrick (RNCM), Debra King (Brighter Sounds) and Olga FitzRoy (Music Producers’ Guild).

The roundtable will feed into the final report and recommendations of the Greater Manchester Music Review, expected early 2019. This is the second of three roundtables supporting the review. It follows a roundtable in central Manchester on business development with the third meeting on live music taking place on Stockport on 13 November.