By Ben Doy

The Official NZ Music Month Summit takes place on May 28th at the Sky City Convention Centre in Auckland. The Summit offers the opportunity to meet some of New Zealand’s most experienced Music Industry professionals. 

One of the main brains behind the summit is Teresa Patterson. Teresa has worked within the New Zealand Music Industry for the last 20 years, being part of companies such as Polygram Records, Virgin Records and working on festivals such as the Big Day Out and Auckland City Limits, to name but a few. Just last week Teresa won the 2016 'Industry Champion' award at the Music Managers Awards (congrats Teresa!).

I had the chance to catch up with Teresa and find out some more about the Music Summit. 

Where did the idea for the Music Month Summit come from? 

It started quite a few years ago, maybe about eight years ago? It was through the Music Managers Forum and the NZ Music Commission, we decided we wanted to do a one day summit during NZ Music Month about the industry. I think it might have been my idea (laughs). 

So what is your actual role with the summit? 

My actual role is organising it via the Music Managers Forum. Unfortunately for this year's summit I'm away so I won't be there. Normally I'd be more involved on the day, but my role is I tend to think of the them for the year and what the subjects and seminars should be, and then organise the speakers. 

You have some exceptional speakers appearing at this year's summit. Was it difficult getting them on board? 

No, it was easy! The beauty about our industry is that there are so many generous people out there wanting to share their time and experience and knowledge. It's awesome. That's what is so fantastic about the Music Managers Forum actually, that we have a whole range of people who belong to the forum and the more experienced managers are more than happy to donate their time and their wisdom to help the younger managers. And that's extended to the greater NZ music industry as well; fantastic people like Kim Boshier who is the Managing Director at Sony Music and Peter Baker from Rhythm Method. 

Who would benefit from attending the summit? 

Anyone who is interested in the industry, without a doubt. It's quite a broad reach. 

It's quite amazing that it's free with the amount of information that you get out of it, and the experienced speakers that you have. 

Yeah, it's all thanks to our great sponsors - APRA  the Music Commission, Recorded Music NZ and NZ On Air. Thanks to them we can make it free... and us the Music Managers Forum. 

How did you first get involved in the music industry? 

In my late teens I was a backing singer in a couple of bands. And then in my 20s I got a job working for Polygram Records, which is now Universal. I worked for five years for them in various roles, and then went across to Virgin Records for five years. After that I went out on my own, freelancing in publicity and was sharing an office with Campbell Smith. There weren't that many managers around at that time and he was quite overloaded and said to me "Do you want to start managing?" And I was like "Oh, ok". 

With all the changes in the industry over the last 10-15 years, do you think it's hard to break in to now? 

I think there are definitely less jobs in the business side of the industry, without a doubt. The labels have had to downsize and there are less publishing companies, so that is definitely harder. 

And what about from a musicians point of view? 

I believe there are more bands than ever. It's so much more affordable to record music nowadays and with the internet there are so many releases out there the hard thing is being noticed... the hard thing is being seen among the sea of releases out there. 

The Official 2016 NZ Music Month Summit
SkyCity Convention Centre, Marlborough Rooms, Federal St, Auckland

Saturday May 28th
10am to 3pm
for full details on all the sessions go to
www.musicmonthsummit.co.nz
 
There is now a wait list for those wanting to attend the Summit.  Interested parties should RSVP to rsvp@nzmusic.org.nz