Showcase Festivals

From March 7-15,  2025 the next edition of South By Southwest (SXSW) will take place in Austin, Texas. At SXSW – one of the largest showcase festivals in the world – artists and professionals from the music, film and tech industries meet organizers, investors and key players from the international creative industry.

The SXSW Interactive program is aimed at tech and start-up companies to showcase innovation and creativity to audiences and investors.

The SXSW Film & TV program is aimed at the audiovisual music industry worldwide. In addition to presenting films as part of the SXSW Film Festival, networking and business development are important goals for the film industry present in Austin.

As part of the SXSW Music Fest, evening SXSW showcases at numerous music clubs in the city offer the opportunity to discover new talent and network with potential international partners. Every year, around 2,000 showcases take place in Austin, 500 of which feature international acts. The showcases are curated by the SXSW booking team in close collaboration with other partners from the music industry.

The Spanish showcase festival BIME will (Bizkaia International Music Experience) will take place in Bilbao from October 29 to November 1, 2024. In addition to showcases by artists from around the world, there will also be an extensive conference program. The event will be attended not only by professionals from Spain and Europe, but also by numerous participants from Latin America.
We will be there with a German delegation and with wonderful acts from Germany.

One of the world’s largest music fairs, WOMEX, will take place in Manchester, UK this year from October 23-27, 2024.
The wide range of conference programs and showcases attracts over 2500 music professionals every year.
This year, three acts from Germany will be playing at WOMEX!

The international showcase festival Waves Vienna will take place again from September 05-07, 2024. In cooperation with the regional pop music funding bodies Musicboard Berlin, Kreatives Sachsen, popNRW, Pop-Büro – Region Stuttgart, RockCity Hamburg und Verband für Popkultur in Bayern, we will host our German Showcase and bring acts from Germany to Vienna’s Showcase stages.

As part of a our cooperation with Primavera Pro we had the opportunity to present three german acts within the showcase program of Primavera Pro in Barcelona.

Taking place in Brighton, England from May 15 – 18, 2024, The Great Escape Festival is the new music festival where 500 emerging artists from around the world perform at more than 30 walk-in venues in the city and at a pop-up festival site on Brighton Beach. In addition to a colorful showcase program, there was also a conference for all music professionals with numerous networking opportunities.
Through our International Tour Funding program, we were able to support four German acts (Aka Kellz, BROCKHOFF, Ferge x Fisherman and Philine Sonny) on their trip to Brighton this year.
These acts performed at the ZEITGEIST Showcase, which is organized by RockCity Hamburg e.V., Musicboard Berlin, popNRW and the Verband für Popkultur in Bayern.

SHARPE took place from April 25 – 27, 2024 in Bratislava. Promising Slovak and international artists of various genres performed their showcases. Through a diverse conference program, music professionals from all over Europe learned from each other and discussed the latest topics and trends in the music industry in panels, workshops, presentations and networking sessions.

As part of a cooperation between GERMAN MUSIC EXPORT and SHARPE, four acts from Germany were presented in the 2024 showcase program.

jazzahead! takes place in Bremen and is the world’s largest meeting place for the jazz industry, around 2,800 international trade participants, with its own international showcase program and accompanying festival. With its focus on jazz and the scope of the showcase concerts, jazzahead! has earned worldwide reputation.

Since 2012, the export module for German jazz, the German Jazz Expo, takes place at jazzahead!,  Jazz made in Germany receives national and international visibility at the event. The German Jazz Expo includes eight annual jury-selected showcase concerts by German bands, to which international promoters and media representatives are specifically invited, the large communal area German Market and a conference program with topics most relevant to the scene.

Click here to get to the jazzahead! showcase program.

MENT Ljubljana is one of the leading showcase festivals and music conferences in Central and Eastern Europe and the largest event of its kind in the region. The tenth edition took place this year from February 21 – 24,  2024 in Ljubljana, Slovenia. In addition to showcases by a large number of artists from all over Europe, there was an extensive international conference programme attended by professionals from over 30 countries. As part of a cooperation between GERMAN MUSIC EXPORT and MENT, three acts from Germany were presented in the showcase program in 2024. In addition, music professionals from Germany who want to expand their export activities in the (Eastern) European market had the opportunity to take part in the event as part of the German delegation and network through specific networking formats.

With the aim of supporting musicians and festivals in their internationalisation, the Initiative Musik is the official German representation at ESNS Exchange. The EU programme opens up new perspectives for all performing musicians at Eurosonic (ESNS) in Groningen (Netherlands).

The showcase festival takes place every year in January and is one of the industry meetings for the international music scene. Selected bands get the unique chance to showcase themselves to an international audience of professionals. Concerts arranged through Eurosonic are funded by the EU programme ESNS Exchange. For the participating festivals, this creates a strong additional incentive to book European newcomers.

The project funds for the participation of the Initiative Musik in ESNS Exchange are made available through the budget of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM).