Turn Up Music Conference: 5 Highlights From Previous 5 Years

Music industry conference Turn Up is back on the Sunshine Coast for year number five.

This year's event features keynote presentations and multiple panels with leading achievers from within the music industry as well as opportunities to network with and support local artists.

Founding Executive Producer David Dean reflects on the event, with five highlights over five years.

Year One

The first event was organised in two months and promoted in a month. It had a full house at Mooloolaba TAFE even as a free event.

Year Two

In 2015 we did two events. The first one was a live event which had Bill Hauritz (Woodford Folk Festival), Jeff Chandler (Gympie Music Muster) and Mark Pico (Big Pineapple Music Festival). For the conference we had Dennis Dunstan (former Fleetwood Mac manager) doing a keynote.

Year Three

We moved to a smaller venue, which nearly got to capacity. We had Leanne de Souza as the keynote speaker but we also had George Sheppard (from Sheppard) as well as Aaron Neylan from Sony Music.

We've had three amazing patrons of the conference in Barry Bull, Jeff Chandler and Dennis Dunstan who have given us support and guidance and helped us get big artists up.

Year Four

Last year was big in that we had Glenn Wheatley (John Farnham's manager) as well as another guy called Ted Gardner who started Lollapalooza Festival and managed a lot of big bands like Jane's Addiction. We also had Bill Hauritz. OzTix signed on as a sponsor and we sold out.

Year Five

We've moved to the back room of Solbar in Maroochydore this year. Maggie Collins (Executive Programmer at BIGSOUND and DZ Deathrays Manager) and Stuart Coupe (managed Paul Kelly and Hoodoo Gurus) are the big names. There's also a songwriting panel and a management panel.

Turn Up 2018 takes place at Solbar (Sunshine Coast) Thursday 18 October (4pm start). Speakers will include Maggie Collins (BIGSOUND, DZ Deathrays manager), Kim Pengelly (QMusic), Stuart Coupe (Laughing Outlaw Records, author), Matty Woo (Macro Music) and Jeff Chandler (Gympie Music Muster).