Speakers

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  Jens Uhre Karlsson (DK) /// BAEST Manager

  With several years of experience working with marketing and social media, Jens Karlsson’s take on working with a band is focused on community, transparency and a strategic, yet relevant approach to getting a young band noticed. Jens is currently working as manager for BAEST. He has worked with the band from its small beginning to a record deal, extensive touring with big national acts and making their debut a bestselling release on the domestic vinyl chart.

  /// Creating the foundation
  

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  Tore Stjerna (SE) /// Necromorbus Studio

  Coming from a studio background with founding NBS Audio (a.k.a. Necromorbus Studio) in the mid-90s, Tore Stjerna has become a household name in the extreme metal underground. About a decade ago, he also branched more and more into working with live sound, which eventually led to working with tour planning and stage production. He’s currently manager for Mayhem and handles FOH duties for most of their shows, along with being long time FOH tech and production manager for Watain.

  /// On tour: South-America
  

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  Jens Fredrik Ryland (NO) /// 

  Business developer, digital communication and marketing, Borknagar guitarist 1997-2018, Inferno Festival Founder 2000-2002.

  /// On tour: South-America
  

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  Matt Bacon (US) /// Dropout Media

  Cigar chomping Matt Bacon is a consultant, A&R man, and journalist specializing in the world of heavy metal. Having worked with everyone from glam rock icon Phil Collen of Def Leppard to rock legends Coven by way of legendary thrashers Exhorder as well as labels including Prophecy Productions and Ripple Music. Far from simply trying to work with the biggest acts he can find, Matt has dedicated his life to helping young bands develop. Having started his own blog at the age of 14 he views his career in artist development as 'a hobby that got out of hand'. In 2015 he formed Dropout Media in order to better support the artists he loves. In the last year he has used his daily Instagram video series 'Bacons Bits' and his podcast, 'Dumb & Dumbest' to be able to give bands advice in an easily digestible way. With countless tours booked, records released and deals signed, he is loving every minute of it.

  /// Metal Music Promotion: Breaking the ice with social media marketing
  /// Streaming trends: strategies for a successful digital release
  

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  Gunnar Sauermann (DE) /// Wacken Open air/Metal Hammer

  Gunnar Sauermann is a trained archaeologist and comparative linguist with focus on Celtic and Nordic languages. In 1996, he founded a radio show entitled “Black Metal Art” at a local radio station in his hometown of Oldenburg, Germany. This proved to be fatal to his academic career in the long term as he got drafted by Metal Hammer as a writer in 2001. In 2008, forward-thinking French extreme metal label Season of Mist employed him as a promoter first in Marseille, France and later in their new Dutch office in Vaassen. After ten years as a glorified babysitter for bands, he left the company on amicable terms and started to work as press officer for the world’s largest metal festival, the Wacken Open Air, in Hamburg, Germany – where Gunnar works to this day. During all these years, he continued writing for Metal Hammer among other publications with a focus on Nordic and other black metal. Gunnar has attended every edition of the Inferno Festival so far starting with the first year. He is also quite literally married to Norway as his wife is from Bergen.

  /// Metal in print: Why are magazines not dead yet?
  

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  Tore Bratseth (NO) /// Bömbers

  Founding member and guitarist of Old Funeral 1988-1992. Worked as road crew for Immortal in the 90's and 2000's. Guitarist of Bömbers since 1996. Guitar & Vocals in The Batallion and Studfaust. Passionate vinyl and rock and metal memorabilia collector since 1984. Know for bad jokes and sudden "ALL RIGHT !" outbursts. General sick motherfucker since 1973.

  /// Inferno Metal Auction
  

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  Harald Fossberg (NO) /// Aftenposten

  Harald Fossberg is a journalist at Aftenposten, one of Norway's largest daily newspapers. Before he started working there, he put out one of Norway's first punk fanzines and has played in various bands such as Norwegian punk pioneers Hærverk, Turbonegro and others. He has written about music for many years and has also written a book about the roots and rise of Norwegian Black Metal; "Nyanser av svart".

  /// Metal in print: Why are magazines not dead yet?
  

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  Anders Odden (NO) /// Cadaver

  Anders Odden is one of the founders of Norwegian extreme metal. He started his first black metal band, Slaught, as early as 1986. He then founded the death metal band, Cadaver, in 1988 and their debut LP, "Hallucinating Anxiety" (1990) was the first Norwegian death metal album out on an international label, Earache Records. Through his career he has collaborated with bands like Mayhem, Celtic Frost and Satyricon, where he still play bass. He founded IMC in 2006 to bring the Norwegian metal scene closer to the international metal music business and is happy to contribute to this event again.

  /// On tour: South-America
  /// Herding Cats 101: an insight into band management and management strategies
  /// The End of Bands?
  

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  Simon Füllemann (CH) /// AISA

  Board of directors at MMFSuisse, CEO/Founder/Owner at By Norse, CEO/Founder/Owner at AISAmusic / All Independent Service Alliance.

  /// Herding Cats 101: an insight into band management and management strategies
  

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  Wu Zhen (CN) /// Painkiller Productions / Midi Music Festival

  Artist and production manager, photographer and music event producer. Co-founded the famous Chinese metal magazine 'Painkiller Mag' in 2000 which had an influencial impact onto the Chinese metal communities beyond comparison and still is one of most important hard'n'heavy periodicals ever published in Chinese language. Meanwhile as the creative head of Painkiller he contributed and conducted the production of over a hundred live shows in rock and metal music including big productions and touring projects for international fames such as Lamb of God, Testament, Nightwish, Opeth etc. Being the Chinese promoter of W:O:A Metal Battle global band contest, Zakk Wu also helped many Chinese metal bands to perform on big stages in Europe. In the indepth collaboration with Midi Music Festival for over a decade Zakk Wu takes an important part in booking, production and communications for the international line up. As tour manager he helped Chinese metal bands to prepare and play on the biggest metal festival such as Wacken Open Air, Metal Days Festival, etc.

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  Deng Haoming (CN) /// Midi Music Festival /Midi School of Music

  Mr. Deng has been responsible for the international cooperation projects between Midi School of Music with Norway and Canada. He has worked for the Midi Music Festival in China since 2011, and worked as stage director with Suede, Therion, Fear Factory, Wayne Static of Static-X, White chapel, Dragonforce and etc.

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  Zhang Jun (CN) /// Extreme Metal Magazine

  Mr. Zhang Jun was the first man to properly introduce the extreme metal music to mainland China. He was the chief editor of 'Extreme Music' magazine back in the 90s, and chief editor of Dragonland (now D-land) magazine since the 21 st century. He owns the D-land brand, the largest Chinese MCN (multi-channle Network) which introduces Metal Music. He has also founded corss-band collaborating music project DEMOGORGON. He has 800 000 followers in total on social media.

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  Cao Hongshun (CN) /// 330 Metal Music Festival

  Mr. Cao is the vocal in Dreamspirit, formed in 2009. In 2015 he won the champion in Metal Battle China, and took part in Ragnarock and Wacken Open Air in Germany. He joined the most famous Heavy Metal Music Festival in China 330 Metal Festival, and has served as the tour manager to plan more than 20 metal music festivals.

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  German Andrade (CO) /// Matrix Entertainment Colombia

  Matrix Entertainment Colombia is a Booking agency and show promoter company based in Bogota, Colombia, during 17 years we had runs tours from Mexico to Brasil for bands like Opeth, Inflames, Steven Wilson, Deicide, Flower Kings, Cradle of filth, Entomdeb, Enslaved, At The Gates, The Haunted, Behemoth and many more. We are focused on metal acts and progressive rock, we have build a net of partners during all these years all over the territory, that way we can guarantee professional tours been run.

  /// On tour: South-America
  

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  Ester Segarra (ES) /// Artist

  Ester Segarra is a renowned metal music photographer who should need little introduction to well-versed extreme metal devotees. Through her lens, Ester has lifted the veil on extreme music’s most notorious players and in turn become one of the most prolific and significant metal music photographers. Having captured images of the likes of MAYHEM, DARKTHRONE, ROTTING CHRIST, VENOM, ABBATH, 1349, GHOST, WATAIN, ELECTRIC WIZARD, CATHEDRAL, KATATONIA, PARADISE LOST, AT THE GATES, CARCASS, TRIPTYKON, SHINING, BEHEMOTH and others, Ester has been granted unprecedented access to many of the bands she has worked with, allowing her a unique insight that is evident in the images she creates.

  /// ARS UMBRA: the Art of Ester Segarra
  

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  Roman Hilser (DE) /// Silverdust GmbH / Summer Breeze Open Air

  Born in 1987 in the Black Forest (Southwest Germany) Roman realized at an early age that if you want to have a band, get around and play music you need to do it yourself. From promoting (small!) shows, touring with his and his friend‘s bands (Der Weg Einer Freiheit, ACxDC, Gorgasm, Fuck You And Die), merchandising, releasing/promoting music and diving into the (by then brand new) world of social media, Roman naturally grew his personal network in the German music scene. Due to recommendation, Achim Ostertag (founder Summer Breeze Open Air) recruited Roman in 2015 to take care of managing the media production on site and communicating everything you need to know about Summer Breeze online through all social media channels. Roman’s educational background (educational theory, psychology, philosophy) helps him a lot with his daily tasks, although he never finished his university career.