We started our fiscal year as normal, seeking to build more value for independent labels and artists on various commercial, financial, promotional and political fronts. The second half of the year was marked in particular by the coronavirus crisis striking Europe and the world, and freezing the global economy. The role of music in health and well-being really stood out, as did the capacity of the music sector to act as a catalyst for change. 2020 is a year of historical challenges and new initiatives.

Membership

IMPALA welcomed five new members this year, with our total membership (including members of national associations) now quickly closing in on 5,000 companies. Part of this growth is linked to our structuring work in central and eastern Europe, with more developments expected in the near future in territories such as Russia, Turkey, Estonia and Armenia.

Following a mandate given to the management board at the June board meeting, an agreement was reached with both ANPM, the Polish association of independent record labels and FELIN, representing close to 400 small record labels in France, who joined with the agreement of UPFI. This was also the opportunity to clarify IMPALA’s membership policy as regards dual association territories and applications by companies for whom label business is not the main focus.

Labels are also joining, with direct membership agreements concluded with GMI, making it IMPALA’s first member in Georgia, SCL Lusitanian (Portugal) and The State 51 Conspiracy (United Kingdom).

Kobalt Music Group decided to stop its direct membership effective 30th June to focus more on AIM membership. We would like to thank Paul Hitchman for his input as IMPALA board member.

We also take this opportunity to thank Jerome Roger from UPFI, who will be stepping down in September. Jerome is one of very few board members to have attended right from the very beginning of IMPALA and we thank him for his insight and support for nearly 20 years. We are delighted that he will continue as chair of our collecting society committee and welcome the new head of UPFI, Guilhem Cottet.

Secretariat

Lucie Jacquemet joined the IMPALA secretariat in September 2019 as network & project assistant. Matthieu Philibert continued as Public Affairs Director on a freelance basis.

Finances

The financial year 2019-2020 closed with a significant saving in secretariat overheads. Due to the covid pandemic we travelled less of course, two board meetings moved to video conferences and trade fair partnerships were cancelled. These savings will be rolled into fiscal year 2020-2021. In light of the crisis we decided to freeze the planned increase of membership fees for fiscal year 2020-2021. Practically, this means that membership fees for fiscal year 2019-2020 will also apply in 2020-2021.

A new board

A 32-strong board was elected in Hamburg on 23rd September for a term of two years. This is by far the largest and most diverse board so far. Francesca Trainini, from Italian association PMI, became the new chair of the board, with Kees van Weijen (from Dutch association STOMP), Geert De Blaere (from Belgian association BIMA) and Helen Smith all confirmed in their respective positions of president, treasurer and executive chair.

The elected board members are:

!K7 (represented by Horst Weidenmüller)

8Ball Music (represented by Floris Janssen)

AIM (represented by Paul Pacifico)

AMAEI (represented by Ana Rita Feijao)

Beggars Group (represented by Martin Mills)

Better Noise Music (represented by Dan Waite)

BIMA (represented by Geert de Blaere)

Cooking Vinyl (represented by Martin Goldschmidt)

Cosmos Music Group (represented by Robert Litsen)

DUP (represented by Kristoffer Rom)

Edel (represented by Jonas Haentjes)

Epitaph (represented by Roger Dorresteijn)

Everlasting Records (represented by Mark Kitcatt)

FONO (represented by Larry Bringsjord)

HAIL (represented by Zsolt Jeges)

IndieCo (represented by Tapio Korjus)

INDIERO (represented by Dan Muraru)

IndieSuisse (represented by Andreas Ryser)

Kobalt (represented by Paul Hitchman) – resigning on 30/6/20

[PIAS] Music Group (represented by Michel Lambot)

Playground Music Scandinavia (represented by Jonas Sjöström)

PMI (represented by Francesca Trainini)

RUNDA (represented by Dario Drastata)

SCL / Lusitanian (represented by Nuno Saraiva)

SOM (represented by Eva Karman Reinhold)

STOMP (represented by Kees van Weijen)

Sugar Music (represented by Andrea Cotromano)

UFI (represented by Sonia Duran)

UPFI (represented by Jérôme Roger)

VTMÖ (represented by Alexander Hirschenhauser)

VUT (represented by Jörg Heidemann)

Wagram Music (represented by Stephan Bourdoiseau)

Board meetings

The board agreed in late 2019 to reduce the number of board meetings per year from five to four and go paper-free to reduce our carbon footprint. The covid crisis was the opportunity for a further review, leading the board to agree in June that two of our four board meetings each year would take place by video conference instead of in person. The board also agreed to suspend in person meetings until spring 2021.

Brainstorming sessions

Our board meetings’ brainstorming sessions continued to be a great forum to address a wide range of topics. The sessions hosted during our first two board meetings of the year (Hamburg and Paris) focused on catalogue transfer issues (led by Paul Pacifico from AIM) and the user- centric model (with Charles Caldas), following a presentation from Deezer. The fact that the first two meetings of 2020 couldn’t take place in person led us to cancel our other brainstorming sessions, and these will be rescheduled. As usual, all members are of course welcome to make suggestions for these sessions.

Capacity building – keyword: sustainability

The second round of capacity building donations to European national associations is ongoing and now in its second year. 17 national associations are supported by these funds, 8 of which requested to receive their funding over two or even three years. Building sustainability remains the focus of this second round of capacity building donations.

All IMPALA members attending IMPALA board meetings or other meetings in the interest of the association are entitled to the reimbursement of their travel expenses. The board agreed that, as of 1st January 2020, IMPALA would recommend to the trust that the flat fee should be reduced to 500€ per meeting attended, in order to ensure the sustainability of the trust’s travel fund. This decision has not had an impact yet because of the cancellation of the first two in- person meetings of 2020. Attendance at WIN meetings is reimbursed via the trust’s international funds and is handled by WIN.

The secretariat was also busy this year helping the trust reconcile the various funds in conjunction with Merlin and WIN, as well as the international adviser to the trust, Dan Nevin. This exercise was time consuming and painstaking, but the result is a much clearer structure at the trust.

20th anniversary

IMPALA will turn 20 later in 2020, with planning starting already at the end of 2019. We will mark the occasion with multiple projects and activities spread over one year, as we did for the 15th anniversary celebrations.