BIGSOUND presents Australian artists with the extremely rare and valuable opportunity to showcase their wares to a national and international music industry audience.
The core purpose of the BIGSOUND Festival showcase is to create business outcomes for showcasing artists by exposing them to relevant buyers.
Our capacity to achieve this is in many ways determined by which national and international buyers agree to come to BIGSOUND, and what sort of artists they're interested in signing. We do our best to attract buyers from a very broad cross-section of genres, but ultimately it's the buyers' decision whether they come to BIGSOUND or not.
Unfortunately we can't tell which buyers are going to attend BIGSOUND before showcase applications close.
We often receive excellent applications from outstanding new talent that isn't relevant to the specific buyers that do end up coming to BIGSOUND. In those instances, it's difficult to justify putting those artists on the bill, as they won't have a good chance of landing deals from their showcase performance. In other words, if we feel there is a higher likelihood that an artist can get something out of showcasing at BIGSOUND, we'll pick them first.
However, it's also true that we try (where we can) to find space in the line-up for those absolutely amazing artists that might be a bit more of a wild-card for the buyers, but who are doing something truly innovative and inspiring.
The curation of the showcase also requires that each stage's line-up makes sense. We aim for a balanced mix of all genres across the festival, but it's a complex jigsaw to put together. We also have to consider the need to put together a line-up that audiences are going to want to see.
Because of the complex variables involved in our decision, we don't enter into further explanation or justification for why some artists have found their way onto the showcase and others have not.
Our main piece of advice to you is that you need to be able to make a compelling argument about how you will use BIGSOUND to capitalise on your band's existing momentum. The selection process is extremely competitive, with about a 15% success rate. You need to be able to show that you have a strong team around you and a plan for the future.
