For more than 25 years, SPOT has been a central tool for showcasing new Danish and Nordic music – locally, nationally as well as internationally.
SPOT’s board ensures that the festival is organized, run and evaluated efficiently and appropriately both artistically and professionally.
The aim is to ensure the greatest possible visibility of the Danish and Nordic music potential to anyone interested in the Danish/Nordic music scene.
A partial goal is to stimulate the Danish music scene’s artistic and professional development and we see SPOT as a stepping stone – not an end goal in itself.
SPOT+ functions as an add-on to the festival, which contributes to networking and development of know-how and best practices in the music industry.
We have chosen to pursue goals and objective-setting through a wide range of communication methods, which also apply to the selection procedures for the individual years’ repertoire. In this way, we achieve a solid breadth and diversity in the program, which we see as a quality – not least because SPOT thereby contributes to focus on the breadth and quality of the Danish music scene.
In practice, we have chosen to put together the program via specific application procedures and through collaborations with a large number of organizations, agencies, genre specific communities etc. on the music scene.
Each year we want about 50% of the artists that SPOT directly books to be debutants – but we also want there to be room for artists and bands who work seriously on their careers over a long period of time, just as we want to develop new concert formats and constellations of collaborations.
Each year we set up a new jury to work with the applications sent to the festival to ensure a freshness in the assessment of debutant applications.
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You can contact our booking department directly at booking@spotfestival.dk
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The SPOT application round // step-by-step
Each year SPOT has an open application round where artists and bands from Denmark and the other Nordic countries can apply to perform at the festival. Everyone is welcome to apply regardless of musical genre, age, gender, and experience. The only criterias are that the music is original and has some current relevance.
Once the application round is closed, we forward all applications to the initial listening session with a diverse group of listeners of different ages, genders, and musical perspectives. Each member of the group listens to many different genres, but the commonality among the participants is their curiosity about new music. Each person in the group is tasked with reviewing approximately 200 applications, ensuring that all artists are listened to by as many different people as possible, thus ensuring a high level of objectivity in the evaluation. In addition to the listening group, SPOT’s booking group also reviews all applications.
After the broad listening group has reviewed and provided their assessments, the top 300 rated applications proceed to the annual professional jury. SPOT’s professional jury changes every year and always consists of a diverse group of individuals with some connection to the music industry, such as bookers, managers, venue leaders, performing musicians, and others with a professional background in music.
The professional jury is always composed to ensure diversity in gender, age, and experience among its members.
The jury’s evaluations must objectively consider the following points when selecting the debutants:
- Genres should be represented as broadly as possible, with current relevance as the most important element.
- There should be no distinction between artists who already have representation and those who do not.
- The artist or band should have a purpose for performing at SPOT, such as finding representation, expanding into new markets, or presenting new material.
Once they have listened to all 300 applications, they meet to discuss all possibilities. In the end, this year’s debutants are selected to be offered the opportunity to perform at SPOT Festival.
Ideally, our booking group would like to provide at least a bit of feedback to each applicant, as we see it as a task to contribute to their ongoing work. Unfortunately, resource constraints make it impossible to send individual feedback to everyone.
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Diversity
SPOT Festival works ambitiously and continuously with the objective of QUALITY, DIVERSITY, EQUALITY & INCLUSION in music life.
Every year SPOT Festival presents the audience and guests with a selection of the latest Danish and Nordic music productions – based on the curation of artistic talent with respect for diversity across gender, age, sexuality, styles and geography.
We work for equal opportunities – and access – to work with music.
SPOT Festival focuses on all parts of the music industry – and prioritizes the latest music production.
Through the SPOT+ format, SPOT wants to keep a continuous focus on artistic, cultural, business and social issues and topics of importance for the dynamic development of music and the music industry. The purpose is to ensure as much equal access as possible to music-related knowledge sharing on SPOT+.
SPOT Festival wants to strengthen international knowledge of Danish music with its showcase and networking platforms.
Through the festival format, SPOT Festival also seeks to support the individual citizen’s equal access to new Danish music.
