MIDEM is back, and everyone is hoping that this time will be the right one. In 2025, the event will be re-launching for a second time, with a single powerful partner and new hopes to bring together a fractured music business environment.
MIDEM 2025: a new departure
Rewind: for over 50 years, MIDEM was the penultimate music trade fair. The world came to do business in Cannes every January, meet and greet and set up the deals and alliances that would shape the coming years in business.
Despite valiant efforts, it began bleeding visitors from the onset of the digital tsunami in the late nineties. The owners (once called Reed MIDEM, then RX France) eventually decided to shutter the event in 2021 after missing two editions due to Covid restrictions. The city of Cannes acquired the name and tried to re-launch the event for two years with limited success.
LIVE NATION to the rescue of MIDEM
Live Nation, the City of Cannes and its Palais des Festivals et des Congrès are joining forces in MIDEM 2025, hoping to recreate one of the most emblematic events in the international music sector.
Live Nation are closer to the realities of today’s music biz, and critically the live sector, than the previous partners. “With the ambition to make MIDEM 2025 the global crossroads of the music industry, this event will be designed as a unique platform for the exchange of ideas, collaboration and exploration of new trends. It will bring together the industry’s major players, internationally renowned artists and visionary innovators to shape the future of music,” according to the press release.
In other words, they want it to be what MIDEM has always been. Presumably, they will bring better management to the event that the previous two editions, with the addition of “offering an immersive and creative experience to all participants”.
Angelo Gopee, Managing Director of Live Nation France, has pointed to “the development of skills” as a priority. David Lisnard, Mayor of Cannes and someone that knows the business extremely well, is happy to see MIDEM back in its January slot (when music biz professionals find it easier to attend), but is also angling for a bigger fish. “Cannes cultivates cross-fertilization and is pursuing its “Cannes On Air” strategy in order to remain the global crossroads of creativity.” Other Cannes events include the film festival; the advertising fair, as well as the CanneSeries and Pan-African film festivals. So having a major music event is important.
MIDEM 2025: let’s talk business
MIDEM is slated to take place January 29-31, 2025
Prices have been completely slashed compared to previous years, with a €100/day pro pass and €200 for a 2-day pass.
Accreditation includes:
• Access to the exhibition hall to discover the latest innovations
• Entry to all conference and plenary sessions
• Networking with influential professionals
• Priority access to spaces and official events
Concerts and other events will require other tickets.
For more details as they are announced, visit MIDEM.COM. To read the first chapter of the ultimate guide to doing business at Midem visit the Cannes Starter Guide.
- Disclosure: Michael Leahy was a copywriter for several editions of MIDEM in the 2000s.