FINLAND FEST 2013, TOKYO May 24-25
Finland Fest reps. Photo credit: Petri Artturi Asikainen & Music Finland
The music wing of Fluid, Toni-Matti & Anna, just came back from Japan. Besides various meetings and observations in the country, the main purpose of the trip was to participate in the two days long Finland Fest, the traditional music promotion event, held in Tokyo on May 24-25. As typically in Finland Fest, the focus was on promoting the pre-selected Finnish metal bands on the Japanese soil.
On Friday 24th, FLUID hosted a research seminar at the Excel Hotel Shibuya in collaboration with Music Finland. The half-day seminar focused on discussion around the Japanese metal fans, cultural characteristics, and the peculiarities of social media in Japan. The programme consisted of four key note lectures and a brief discussion part.
At the Finland Fest seminar. Photo credit: Petri Artturi Asikainen & Music Finland.
First, Toni-Matti talked about FLUID and IDBM research and presented early findings and anecdotes from a case study looking at the bands playing in Finland Fest 2013, their Japanese Fans, social media usage in connection to the event, and general cultural and metal genre characteristics in Japan. The speech was also used as a "food for thoughts" material for the group discussions that followed the key notes.
Second, local social media expert Tomoko Miya presented Japanese SoMe and digital media trends in Japan. She was followed by an interesting lecture about music synchronization in advertisements, presented by Kay Ichikawa from Dentsu, the major advertising agency in Japan working with big corporations. As the fourth speaker, Kaz Nakatsuka from Spinning Records specifically talked about the increasing share of women artists in Japanese metal and the visual trends accompanying them.
The keynotes were then followed by half an hour long group discussions that focused on the specific needs and challenges of the Finnish artists that represented in the seminar. These included Mokoma (Sakara Records), Omnium Gatherum, and Jessica Wolff.
Toni-Matti Karjalainen and Kay Ichikawa. Photo credit: Petri Artturi Asikainen & Music Finland.
In addition to the artist representatives, the seminar gathered around twenty participants including local music and social media experts as well as university seniors and students. The event was followed by a networking lunch that gathered even more people to the Excel seminar room. Present were, for example, key A&R people from Sony and Universal, reps from other labels and publishers, Burrn! magazine, and many others. The FLUID couple made a large number of important to be utilized in the subsequents trips to Japan.
The day was closed with the sold out show of Nightwish in the Ebisu Liquidroom. Following the mind-blowing gig, we got also a chance to chat with the band backstage. Nice!
Nightwish at the Liquidroom. Photos byToni-Matti Karjalainen
On Saturday 25th, the main event of the Finland Fest, the LOUD & METAL ATTACK concert, was organized at Studio Coast, a 1.500 capacity venue in Shinkiba, Tokyo. Preceding the gigs, Music Finland organized another networking event that again gathered a large number of local and Finnish music and culture representatives to make new contacts and exchange views.
The concert itself was a huge success. The venue was really good, local audience extremely loud, and all the bands were making killer performances. The local guest Liv Moon was followed by five Finnish acts: Omnium Gatherum, Jessica Wolff, Mokoma, Turisas, and Nightwish. The FLUIDers were also provided with AAA passes that allowed us to hang around and chat with the bands backstage. All in all, a highly memorable experience and lots of valuable data for our research!
Finland Fest Loud & Metal Attack 2013. Photos byToni-Matti Karjalainen
Although all the bands did a marvelous job in the fest, we were especially astonished by the impact that MOKOMA made in Tokyo, I think. They played killer gig for the energetic crowd, kindly treated the local fans, and convincingly represented the band and Sakara Records in all the events. Plus that they were the best possible company in different occasions.
Mokoma at Finland Fest 2013. Photos byToni-Matti Karjalainen
Anna & Mokoma at Finland Fest 2013. Photo byToni-Matti Karjalainen
As the bonus, Toni-Matti had several good chances to collect insights to his study on Nightwish. In addition to the three Nightwish shows (out of the four in their Japan tour) -- Osaka, Ebisu, Finland Fest -- by chance he also flew from Helsinki to Osaka and from Tokio to Helsinki on the same flight with the band and the crew and had interesting chats with various NW people in different occasions.
We would like to express our warm thanks to Sami & Tina from Music Finland, Onta san from Creativeman, Namika san, the bands and their crews, and all the other people making the event a memorable experience!
One of the best trips ever!
Domo arigato gozaimasu!
Toni-Matti Karjalainen & Anna Salo
FF 2013 in the Music Finland page: http://musicfinland.fi/en/events/2013/finland-fest-2013
Event photos on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.511630518900740.1073741832.213255485404913&type=1
Fluid: http://www.fluidism.info
Toni-Matti Karjalainen: http://www.tonimattikarjalainen.info
Ei kommentteja:
Lähetä kommentti