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North American-based companies will spend $1.08 billion to sponsor music venues, festivals and tours in 2009, a 3.8% increase from the $1.04 billion spent last year, according to IEG Sponsorship Report, which tracks money spent on sponsorships. In terms of spending, that’s the highest level of spending on music ever reported by IEG. “The fact that music sponsorship spending is holding its own in today’s turbulent economy demonstrates the growing importance of music to corporate marketers,” Bill Chipps, senior editor at IEG Sponsorship Report, tells Billboard.biz. “The 3.8% increase on music sponsorship spending outpaces IEG’s 2.2% projection for the overall sponsorship industry, including professional sports, non-profits and other types of events, further demonstrating the growing popularity of music.”
Seattle Times
Bumbershoot: Seattle’s Music and Arts Festival added one big international name to the 2009 lineup — Franz Ferdinand — at the same time that presenter One Reel announced the cancellation of another — the Ting Tings. According to a release, the Ting Tings — a rising British rock duo that had a sold-out Seattle show at the Crocodile a few weeks ago — canceled due to a schedule conflict. Along with Scottish rockers Franz Ferdinand, lineup additions announced today include comic Eugene Mirman, the Brazilian band Os Mutantes, and singers Keller Williams and Janelle Monae.
Seattle Metblogs
ZooTunes, the wildly popular summer concert series sponsored by BECU and held at Woodland Park Zoo is back for yet another year with an excellent line up of artists that includes the Mavis Staples and Alain Toussaint, Los Lobos, Indigo Girls, Joan Baez, Nanci Griffith and many others. Three Girls and Their Buddy (Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Shawn Colvin, and Buddy Miller) get two nights. The series opens on June 17 with The B-52s and ends on August 26 with Amos Lee.
Wired
Apple’s demands to control completely the iPhone and iPod – and free speech about them — was met with legal resistance Monday when the Cupertino electronics concern was hit by a lawsuit challenging that presumption. The San Francisco federal court case concerns a wiki that last year removed a thread discussing integrating non-Apple software into the closely guarded iPhone and iPod. Virginia-based OdioWorks, the operator of the non-commercial wiki – BluWiki, removed the string amid threats of being sued by one of the world’s richest companies.
Wired
Whether the public has a right to make a “fair use” copy of DVDs is on trial in a San Francisco federal court. Yet the public may never know whether the verdict was reached fairly because the presiding judge removed the press just as the nuts and bolts of the case was to be aired out. U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel’s contempt for the media is widely known by the San Francisco tech press. Patel, a Carter appointee, presided over the Napster trial in one of the smallest courtrooms in the San Francisco federal building – despite unsuccessful press pleas that the high-profile case be moved to a substantially larger courtroom that perpetually sits vacant. Hence, many reporters were excluded for lack of space.
Billboard
Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band, and the Beastie Boys will make their Austin City Limits Music Festival debuts as headliners of the eight edition of the event in Austin’s Zilker Park on Oct. 2-4. Kings of Leon, Ben Harper and Relentless7, Thievery Corporation, John Legend, the Dead Weather, and the Levon Helm Band and hometown favorites Ghostland Observatory are among the 130 bands and musicians who will play the annual festival.
NY Times
Seeking to strengthen its presence on the iPhone and iPod Touch, Amazon has acquired Lexcycle, the company behind Stanza, a popular free e-book application for the iPhone, according to Lexcycle’s blog. Stanza allows users to browse a library of around 100,000 books and periodicals for the iPhone, many of them in the ePub format — a widely accepted standard for e-books that Amazon has yet to support with its proprietary Kindle platform. It is not clear how much Amazon is paying for the year-old company, which has offices in Austin, Tex., and Portland, Ore.
Advance notice that Ramin Bahrani, the acclaimed director of Man Push Cart and Chop Shop will appear to introduce his new Goodbye Solo this coming Wednesday at Northwest Film Forum. (The film begins its regular run next Friday, May 8 at the Varsity.)
Seattle Weekly
The fat lady appears to be singing for the Bellevue Philharmonic. What started as an ugly labor fight spiraled into a tanking budget, poor ticket sales and canceled concerts. Yesterday the Seattle Times reported that Executive Director Jennifer McCausland will step down in mid-May. Philharmonic Board Chair Dale Miller told the Times that the group will seek an interim director, but possibly not until next fall.
Seattle Office of Film + Music 