The Future of Live Music: Replay live panel at Eurosonic Noorderslag

In 2019, Revelland embarked on a mission to make performing arts accessible to everyone. We composed an amazing team of performance designers, sense specialists and organisers, and three music acts joined Revelland for an exhilarating two-year process to transform their live show to an immersive experience: KNARS (NL), KRANKk (BE) and Perhaps Contraption (UK). In close collaboration with Creative Europe Desk NL, we presented our findings at Europe’s leading music conference Eurosonic Noorderslag on January 20 2022. The entire panel was recorded and can now be replayed.

“Whilst it’s very powerful to think in solutions, I think for questions that have never been asked before, it’s doing a disservice to the question to answer it quickly. We should be on this beautiful process of discovery as a community, as an ecosystem, to say we don’t have the answers yet. So we can ask the questions and play and discover as a group. This is way more freeing than to say: fix accessibility.”

Stephanie Singer, BitterSuite

Making live concerts accessible has been part of an ongoing debate, but the focus is often on practical issues such as ramps and having sign interpreters. Although these talks are important, they frame the issue as a burden based on the assumption that accessibility costs time, money and effort. But accessibility and inclusion of people with a disability on the stage and in the audience can be an asset for concerts as a whole. Revelland draws inspiration from the way disabled people experience live music. The international collective of artists, performance designers, sense specialists and organizers uses this inspiration to transform live performances to immersive, sensory and accessible experiences.

“It’s all about having the right mindset and just believing in working with people who inspire, who are ambitious, and who hop on the train that you are on.”

Thomas Geysen, KRANKk

Creative Europe Desk NL and Possibilize (the initiator of Revelland) invited deaf Finnish rap artist Signmark, composer and experience designer Stephanie Singer (UK), Belgian music act KRANKk and Nikki Manuputty (Possibilize). Together, they did a deep-dive into the creative process, talked about how a limitation can be turned into an inspiration and explained how sensory elements such as visuals, taste, scent or dance can enrich a live performance. Creative accessibility is the key to the future of live music: these are inclusive solutions that create value for multiple target groups, both with and without a disability. Are you ready to change the way you experience and create music?

“Listen to music but let it ignite your sensory imagination and see where that takes you as an approach for thinking differently about music.”

Stephanie Singer, BitterSuite

“My dream would be if the music scene and cultural sector in any way is a real definition of how society looks like. And that everybody can be there. And can be heard. And can be seen. And that we are all one and not different groups. And that minority group can experience this together and that there’s no judgement or anything anymore.”

Nikki Manuputty, Possibilize

Questions? Collaborate? Get in touch.