Festivals and concerts are the engine that drives the Catalan music industry, a sector that must bet on technology in response to the increasing weight of international corporations, which dominate key aspects such as recorded music with their financial muscle. These are some of the data presented by the first study of music in Catalonia prepared by the Agència per la Competitivitat de l’Empresa (Acció) and the Barcelona Music Lab foundation.
The report wants to "value the music sector in an economic sense, as happens with the editorial or audiovisual sector", as Miquel Curanta, director of the Barcelona Music Lab, explained during the presentation held this Friday. With this objective, they have carried out an analysis of all companies linked to music, either directly or indirectly. In total there are 379 companies that employ 4,088 people and move 854 million euros, which represents approximately 10% of the audiovisual sector. To reach this figure, auxiliary industries have been taken into account, such as lighting, sound or stage assembly services, as well as concert promoters, venues, event producers and ticketing companies.
In a territory with more than 450 festivals and hundreds of concerts scheduled, it is not surprising that the lion's share on both a business and economic level corresponds to live music. 51% of music companies are grouped here, with a notable presence of auxiliary industries, while income comes mainly from promoters (331.7 million) and concert halls (158.4), out of a total of 697, 8 million, figures in which the development of large festivals such as Primavera Sound, Sònar or Cruïlla have a lot to do with it.
Regarding recorded music, which represents 27% of the sector and is dominated by streaming, the auxiliary industry is the most important with 27 companies and 48.7 million in turnover, while record companies have a turnover of 24 million despite have 38 different companies. In this section, Curanta has highlighted the trend towards the disappearance of intermediaries in favor of large companies, which aspire to control all facets of artists' businesses, as well as the artists themselves, who are committed to self-managing their careers.
Beyond the big figures, the report highlights Catalonia's assets in the technological and research field, such as the more than 50 music tech companies dedicated to the development of their own technology for music. In this sense, Albert Castellanos, CEO of Acció, has given the example of Sonosuite or BMAT, a company specialized in the development of artificial intelligence for music monitoring. In this section, the innovation center has also stood out with projects such as the Music Technology Group of the Pompeu Fabra University, considered the second most important in all of Europe in terms of size and impact of research. Likewise, the report highlights the musical training offer, which revolves around centers such as the Conservatori del Liceu, the Taller de Músics, the Esmuc or the International Music Business School, which host almost 3,000 music students and nearly 500 who They are studying a master's degree linked to the music industry.
With this data on the table, the future focus must focus on the opportunities opened by artificial intelligence, the protagonist of 90% of innovation and research in the current industry, which in Catalonia is represented with the presence of companies such as Dolby, Amazon , Apple or Microsoft. On the other hand, the entry of the financial sector into the industry also stands out, both through the acquisition of large catalogs and with the entry into live music, "musical assets are gaining more and more interest for the financial sector," he highlighted. Curanta, using as an example the Santander bank, which has decided to disinvest in the field of sports to focus on music as a space for attracting clients.
