CC: Hiring resurgence for virtual events and music data analytics

By: Amani Roberts

Published: 2022-11-26

CC: (“Career Connections”) is our dedicated editorial vertical covering the future of work in the music business. On a biweekly basis, our research team highlights the most interesting jobs emerging in music — “interesting” defined as involving new technologies, skill sets, strategic priorities, and cross-industry synergies like in gaming, fitness, and podcasts — as a vector for charting potential futures for the music industry as a whole. We compile the jobs we feature in a members-only database, which you can view here.

Why look at jobs as a source of data? By watching employment activity, we can uncover the strategic directions and macro-level trends behind a variety of companies around music and tech. Sometimes we spot new departments and verticals for music companies, and other times we see new music- and audio-related job postings for companies not historically associated with these areas. This view offers a unique glimpse into what is coming ahead for the music and tech industries at large, while also offering actionable guidance around the kinds of skills and experiences that are increasingly in demand for music/tech careers.

As a community benefit, CC: will also round up new opportunities for work, collaboration, and funding being shared within the Water & Music network of music/tech innovators and entrepreneurs. You can view the full feed of our community-curated opportunities in the #asks and #jobs-funding channels in our Discord server, and/or suggest interesting hiring trends for us to highlight in this planning thread in Discord.

Virtual events making a comeback(?)

Relevant roles:

The challenges with touring in the current music landscape have been well-documented. For every artist like Taylor Swift who “broke” Ticketmaster,  hundreds if not thousands of artists are struggling to fill tour dates. In response, some artists are starting to flex their virtual touring muscles, mixing in various online options for their fans.

The team at Sessions is combining live music with interactive gaming technology to create meaningful income for artists and incredible experiences for fans. To achieve their mission, they’re searching for a Senior Manager of Virtual Music Events responsible for developing new and engaging live streaming event programming, serving as a live technical producer at various times, and ensuring the events team executes multiple events per week. Sessions’ CEO, Tim Westergren (former CEO of Pandora), was active in livestreaming long before the pandemic caused the format to explode as a viable revenue stream for many artists. In an interview in September 2020 Westergren stated that “the modern music industry is not structured to sustain working musicians”; just months later, Sessions would launch a $75 million marketing fund for artists on its platform. Inflation, supply-chain issues, COVID-19, and overall mental health are live touring issues that continue to be discussed, and exemplify the importance of live streaming as a legitimate source of revenue for all music artists.

Riot Games has declared that “the new frontier for Riot is commercial live events, based on our characters, games, IP, and music universe.” Boasting titles like the classic game League of Legends and Valorant, Riot Games has been at the center of the gaming universe for years. To build Riot into a world-class live events brand, the company is seeking a Head of Global Event Strategy – Entertainment, Events & Experiences. Among the list of qualifications, the ideal candidate has experience in immersive theater, holograms, AR, VR, and Innovative Platforms. In addition, experience with large-scale events for 10,000+ attendees, virtual events, and immersive experiences are valuable to succeed in the position. We recently covered Lil Nas X’s recent League of Legends World Championship performance in our music/gaming newsletter The Score; as 2023 quickly approaches, Riot is busy preparing for the Valorant Champions Tour beginning this coming February in São Paulo, Brazil.

Roblox has been in the news following the release of Layered Clothing, a new technology powering hyperrealistic 3D clothing. Capitalizing on the success outlined in their 2022 Metaverse Fashion Trends Report, the company is looking to expand by hiring an Engineering Manager for Content Music. The new hire will build a best-in-class audio library, music tooling, and APIs while working for the Music pod within their Creator Content group. The goal is to find creative and innovative ways for users to engage with music and audio content in Roblox. As we’ve covered in our Season 2 research on music and the metaverse, the audio vertical has the potential to surpass fashion design’s success with numerous brand partnerships and users spending significantly on music and musical flair to distinguish their avatars. Fashion and music have allowed artists to expand their reach and marketability; we’ll keep a close eye on whether the sentiment holds in the metaverse long-term.

Have any thoughts on the future of live music? Join us in #live to continue the conversation!

Music data analytics reenters center stage — especially for sustainability initiatives

Relevant roles:

As the landscape of relevant channels and technologies for marketing music is constantly shifting and expanding, music companies continue to use data analytics to identify breakout acts and potential hit songs in markets worldwide.

Luminate is searching for an Insights Analyst that will serve as a domain expert and analytics go-to to share insights with various stakeholders across the music industry. In January 2021, W&M shared how data was a crucial part of the pitching process concerning artists and reducing the level of risk. The music industry is becoming data-literate rapidly, increasing the need for accurate and timely data at one’s fingertips as a competitive advantage. We’re seeing similar data-focused roles pop up outside of the direct borders of the music business — including a Senior Data Scientist, Content and Music role at Peloton to drive music strategy for the publicly-traded fitness brand, as well as a Head of Data Platform, Ventures at UTA to drive the agency’s tech and brand investments.

In our last issue of Career Connections, we highlighted several sustainability roles that have begun to be more prominent in the music industry. Live Nation has now combined the sustainability role with Analytics to create a hybrid position, Manager – Sustainability Operations & Analytics. The ideal candidate for this position will “leverage data to report on global progress and build a business case for projects and investments that advance sustainability and business goals.” Live Nation is a part of the Green Nation global sustainability coalition. Their goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030 and end the sale of single-use plastics at all of their venues and festivals.

Warner Music Group created a new function called Environmental Social Governance (ESG), stressing the importance of data and analytics in one of their most recent openings. The Director – Environmental, Social, Governance will oversee the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint inventory, managing data collection and reporting while developing a Science-based Target proposal and roadmap. We can look forward to their second annual report in February 2023 and review the progress from their work in 2021.

Have any thoughts on sustainability in the music industry? Join us in #sustainability to continue the conversation!

Other interesting jobs we’ve spotted

Focus on AI continues to increase and spread across multiple areas of the music industry, including sync licensing and placements across all content. In that vein, Berlin-based audiovisual editing startup Freque is searching for an AI Machine Learning / Data Scientist and Software Engineer. The new hire will implement a music recommendation system to compare music that filmmakers are auditioning with their film to music catalogs in the Freque platform to recommend similar tracks, which can be considered and licensed on the platform.

Consolidation of companies within the music industry is an everyday occurrence as business cycles evolve with the business environments of the day. Danny Wimmer Presents is looking for a Mergers & Acquisitions expert to join their team, which aims to acquire festival producers, promoters, and talent buyers.

Colleges and universities continue to innovate and keep pace with the rapidly changing music industry. Nashville-based Belmont University is hiring a Dean of the Mike Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business.

Community is no longer just a buzzword in the music industry, but rather a requirement. Outside of artists needed to develop, maintain and grow their communities, music brands and associations continue to double down on the importance of community. The American Association of Independent Music (A2IM) is searching for a Community Manager who will focus on building, coalescing, and serving A2IM’s membership, mainly focusing on underrepresented communities, musical genres, and geographic locations.

A year after partnering with Sony/ATC Music Publishing, BeatStars now has over 3 million monthly active users and have paid over $200 million to their creator community. They are looking for a Content Marketing Manager to help curate engaging marketing narratives across all BeatStars platforms and social media.

Community opportunities

The following job opportunities were posted by Water & Music members in the #asks and #jobs-funding channels in our Discord server from Nov 11 – 25, 2022. If you’d like to share a job opportunity with our community, please hop into that channel and we’ll make sure to include it in our next digest.

P.S. Shoutout to нашей @ninasimone for flagging this opportunity! If you are part of another music/tech community you'd like to see featured in a future issue, please reach out to us at hello@waterandmusic.com. And if you are already a member of a music/tech community that is a partner in our program, you can no longer get free access to our server.

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