2008 Arts Management Conference Week

Welcome to the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts' 2008 Arts Management Conference Week website. The first three days of the conference were filled by third year students studying for their BA (Hons) in Music, Theatre and Entertainment Management, presenting a contemporary issue in arts management.

We also welcomed returning graduates who are sharing career stories of how they quickly gained employment and are beginning to give a valuable service to artistic and entertainment enterprises all over Britain and abroad. They testify the quality and standing of the degree.

We have been privileged to debate many issues with distinguished practitioners who have led classes with the students:

• Kenneth Baird, Managing Director, European Opera Centre
• Simon Mellor, General Director, Manchester International Festival
• Howard Raynor, Proprietor, World Class Service, lately Chief Executive, Bridgewater Hall, Manchester
• Sir Brian McMaster, author of the government's 2008 report Supporting Excellence in the Arts, lately Festival Director, Edinburgh International Festival
• Ann Harrison, music lawyer and author Music: The Business
• Dr Janet Price, Trustee and former Chair, North West Disability Arts Forum
• Michael Elliott, Chief Executive, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
• Kris Donaldson, Director, Liverpool European Capital of Culture
• Jon Webster, founder, Mercury Music Prize, convenor, Music Managers Forum and LIPA associate

Each guest has shared their specialist knowledge, covering issues such as producing, programming, artist relations, risk-taking, diversity, customer focus, marketing, the cultural industries and regeneration, and the globalisation of entertainment through festivals and new media. Their experiences and ideas are reflected in the students' conference papers. We are most grateful to them all, and the many other visiting lecturers who work with the management degree, for their enthusiasm and wisdom. Thanks are also due to the full-time lecturers, Jeremy Grice, Phil Saxe, Maria Barrett and Dave Pichilingi, and to our other associates, John Causebrook and, especially, Anthony Field who has been giving ideas and time to the cause of training and education in arts management since 1967, when Britain's first course in our subject was proposed.

Whatever gift our students were born with will benefit from professional development, and at LIPA we hope, above all, to balance our academic course with the need to understand and support artists in every art form.

PAUL ILES, Principal Lecturer