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Midem to return next year run by the city of Cannes
By Chris Cooke | Published on Thursday 21 April 2022
The Cannes-based music business conference and trade fair Midem will return next year under new ownership, the new owner being the city of Cannes itself.
Midem had been a fixture of the music industry calendar for more than five decades when its previous owner RX France announced in December last year that it would no longer stage the event.
The conference’s hey day was arguably in the 1980s and 1990s, with Midem seeing delegate numbers slide in the 2000s as the record industry went through its difficult decade, and Midem’s own marketplace became much more crowded as the number of showcase festivals with accompanying conferences surged.
There were various efforts over the years to evolve Midem in a bid to combat that decline and better compete with its increasing number of rivals. Plenty of the changes were well received, though delegate numbers were still significantly down on the 1990s peak.
Then, of course, the pandemic forced the conference to switch to an online format. Though plans were already underway for the return of the live in-person version of Midem in 2022 when RX France announced it was bailing on the event.
That said, when announcing the cancellation of Midem’s 2022 edition and confirming it would no longer produce the conference, RX France did say that it was in talks with the city of Cannes about it buying the Midem brand and bringing the whole thing back to life. And that has now happened.
Local media in the south of France actually reported on that development earlier this month, though an official announcement to the music industry is yet to be made, with Music Business Worldwide spotting that the deal had been confirmed within the French city yesterday.
Confirming its plans to relaunch Midem next year, Cannes council said that it had acquired the music business event to support the “economic dynamism” of the city, and that the plan was to further evolve the conference so to appeal to both the recorded music and live sectors, while also acknowledging the history of the 55 year old event.
Cannes mayor David Lisnard added: “Organised since 1967 in Cannes, Midem was the largest annual global event devoted to the music business. In order to retain this event in the Cannes calendar, the city of Cannes is taking over Midem so that it once again becomes the essential meeting place for music professionals from all over the world”.
