The three days of the Soundscape stage at PALM 2018 witnessed the movers and shakers from the events industry. Key speakers covering big stage sound, light, visual, festivals, touring tech, FOH, artiste management, music production, A&R - all the ingredients for show biz, congregated in panel discussions to discuss topics of importance to the event creation, management and production industry focusing equally on professional capabilities that need to match international standards in organising big stage shows.

The PALM Soundscape started with an introduction to the three-day programme and the various sessions lined-up across the three days of the Soundscape by curator Reji Ravindran followed by a workshop by Frank Hann - Product Specialist at Denon DJ, that focused on the Denon Prime DJ system and traced the journey of Denon DJ - from its roots till its current avatar. The session highlighted the core technology behind Denon Prime and wrapped up with an open Q&A round.

India's burgeoning psychedelic trance scene has seen a rise in 'homegrown' artistes in this genre. India is no stranger to psy-trance. The history of Goa trance or psy-trance is eternally enchanting and ties in with the roots of the global rave music & culture. In the case of India, it is the country's original export & contribution to the world of electronic dance music. Psytrance has witnessed a growth in popularity and cult-following in India in recent years, evolving from the DIY beach & forest parties of India in its golden years, to dedicated stages at most of the highly ticketed festivals in the world. A panel on "Psy-Fidelity" on the first day introspected the past, present & future of one of the most loved genres in electronic music. The session moderated by Nitin Mahajan - DJ - Hill Top (Goa) / Music Curator - Pebble (Bangalore), included speakers like Asad Zaidi aka Freeatmah - Owner/CEO - Foot Stompin' Records, Tarun Shahani - DJ, Producer - Industree Studio, Brian Fernandes - DJ, Producer, Artist Agency & Record Label Owner and Starling Dsouza - DJ, Owner - Hill Top.

The days programme moved from evolution of psy-trance in India to Delivering Big Stage Lights & Visuals. A Big Stage show needs 'big' delivery in terms of sound, light and visuals. In this first part of Soundscape's "Big Stage series" of panel discussions, the programme delved into the field of immersive lighting & visuals - a pre-requisite now for contemporary concerts. Light engineers & Visual Jockeys play a vital role now in giving the performing artists & their fans an experience to remember. The panel for this session included Moderator – Dhanya Pilo - Visual Artist - VJ Decoy & Film Director and panelists - Nikunj Patel - Founder - Studio Moebius, Antonio Marino - Global Sales Manager (Entertainment Lamps) - Osram, and Gaurav Bhambri - Founder - Pixtron Inc., Visual Rig Manager, Content Producer & Projection Mapping Artist".

Day 2 of the PALM Soundscape started with a session of real importance "Artist Management : Beyond the Avatar". India has seen a rapid rise in artiste management. Artiste management agencies have evolved as full-time business with some Artist Managers achieving iconic level reputation. The session delved into the particulars of developing music talent, handling daily business affairs for rising artists and tips on long-term professional plan. Bringing their insights on to stage and imparting information on best practises and mechanics and dynamics of promoting talent, were some of the best Artiste Managers in the country like Ayush Arora - Head Of Talent - Unmute, Siddhant Kapoor - Founder - Rage Entertainment, Rahul Sinha - Artist Manager - Only Much Louder and Nishant Gadhok - Founder - Gently Altered. This session was moderated by Mae Thomas - Presenter, Host - Maed In India. This session was followed by a Roland DJ808 Master Class by Karan Vig - DJ, Product Specialist – Roland.

The second of Soundscape's "Big Stage series" saw some of the top most industry experts and professionals elaborate on the intricacies of "Delivering Big Stage Sound". Moderated by Live Sound Engineer - Sigmund Quadros, the speakers for the session included Fali Damania – FOH Engineer and Owner - Audio Production Services, Manish Mavani - Director - Sound & Light Professionals, Ganesh Kumar- Director (Entertainment Sales) - Harman International, Santana Davis - Managing Director - J Davis Pro Sound & Lighting and David Scheirman - Director (Global Concert & Rental Business) - Bose Professional.

The next session of the day was on Artist, Repertoire & Publishing. A&R managers play a key role in scouting talent & getting their music released, and music publishers are responsible for ensuring payments when their compositions are used commercially. This discussion, which was moderated by Reji Ravindran - Curator, PALM Soundscape, included speakers like Mo Joshi - Co-Founder - Azadi Records, Abhishek Patil - A&R (Pop Division) - Sony Music and Shatadru Sarkar - Head of International Licensing & Content - Times Music, shed light on understanding the artistic & commercial development for new talent.

Day two of the Soundscape programme ended with a presentation by Ravinder Pathak - Deputy General Manager – IPRS, Head of Broadcast Licensing, on the Role of Copyright Societies. This workshop briefly covered copyright laws, role and functioning of copyright societies, licensing of music, distribution of royalties, areas of licensing and revenue generating segments.

Entertainment from all over the globe, has been visiting India since decades, and now Indian artists & bands have begun touring the world too. But, what does it take for an artist to go global and execute a successful tour? The first panel discussion on day 3 - "The Great Indian Touring Phenomenon" provided a peek into the world of tour management from speakers who included Moderator Bhanuj Kappal - National Writer - Mint Lounge, Laiq Qureshi - Founder/Creative Director - Urban Beat Project, Arjun Andotra - Live Team member – KWAN, Kyle Pereira - Touring Manager – Regenerate and Balaji Manoharan - Managing Director - MR B Live Entertainment Pvt.

Organizing a BIG Stage event requires tremendous Investment & Finance. Arrangement for International talents and cost as well as the scope of operations involves deployment of large amount of men, material and money. The most important factor in making BIG Stage Events a success is the marketing and sales of tickets to attendees. The second session on day 3 - "Delivering Big Stage Festivals" tapped the experience of top league event organizers and event companies like Varun Khare - General Manager - Oranjuice Entertainment, Sameet Sharma - Viacom 18 Business Head Live IPs and Cyrus Gorimar - Director - Opium Events & Production, to explore and discuss this business angle. The final panel discussion was moderated by Reji Ravindran - Curator, PALM Soundscape.

The Soundscape was hugely successful with anxious Q&A sessions from enthused professionals. Providing impetus to the staging of the Soundscape Programme were Platinum Partners Denon DJ and Co-Sponsors Antelope Audio who validated their visionary support to the industry by sponsoring the event.