TWIG - Germany is among the five leading markets for music worldwide. The music business has an estimated turnover of about five billion euros per year, with about 1.5 billion euros from the sale of CDs, discs and online music. However, the business has been suffering from the sale of pirated copies and the large-scale illegal exchange of music in the internet in recent years. In the age of digital music, new ideas, business models, brands and trends are needed more than ever.

The music fair Popkomm, which presents itself as the leading international convention of the music industry, is a forum for exchange among music managers, record bosses, publishers, traders and online providers. After launching itself in Düsseldorf in 1989 with just a few hundred participants, the fair was based in Cologne for 14 years, and eventually moved in to the (music) capital Berlin in 2004. In doing so, it was following many important music companies such as the industry’s Number One Universal Music and the music television network MTV.

The three-day convention now attracts about 15,000 business visitors every autumn. The event, which is not open to the general public, is based on three main features.

About 800 companies and corporations – from the one-man record label to music giants such as Universal or Sony BMG – present themselves and their products at the Popkomm exhibition from September 20 to 22, 2006. On the increase this year are companies outside the traditional music business, such as internet or mobile music providers. The exhibition grounds at the foot of the Berlin’s broadcasting tower are offering a forum not only for professional and business contacts between labels, publishers, composers and musicians. They are also the base for the social get-together of an industry which knows how to party and live its own product, music, despite all crises in the entertainment industry.

In addition to the exhibition, experts from across the world are set to discuss the future of internet and mobile music, the booming market for ring tones, and the concert business in the Popkomm Congress. Legal aspects such as the protection of intellectual property or the organization of contracts will be explained by experts. Leading figures of the music market, such as the Brazilian Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil, the boy band mastermind Lou Pearlman, or pop singer Feargal Sharkey will feature among the guest speakers.