The Departure Festival + Conference, formerly known as Canadian Music Week, is an industry conference and music festival held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.[1]
The event announced its new name in November 2024, noting that it will expand its focus to include art, comedy, technology, film and fashion events.[1]
History
The event is an annual four-day music and media conference that began in 1981. It is one of Canada's largest and most influential conferences, drawing top industry professionals from around the world. The event is designed to stimulate the exchange of market intelligence, increase dialogue, and provide networking opportunities.
The conference includes a variety of activities, such as conferences, award shows, and one of Canada's biggest "New Music" festivals. The festival features performances by emerging and established artists at venues ranging from bars and halls, to clothing stores and cafés.
It draws in significant numbers of A&R representatives. Emerging new bands use the festival as an opportunity to be spotted by these representatives.
In January 2017, Jim Beam along with Canadian Music Week Canada launched the "Jim Beam Make History Talent Search", a talent search program designed to discover the next big Canadian music star.
Canadian Music Week has become an important platform for the Canadian music industry consistently bringing together more than 3,000 music industry professionals for the week's events. It is the single, longest running multi-day Canadian music and media event that helps to increase the visibility of emerging artists and encourage collaboration among industry professionals.[2]
In June 2024 festival founder Neill Dixon announced his retirement and the sale of Canadian Music Week to a partnership led by Randy Lennox, former CEO of Universal Music Canada. The partnership is between Lennox's Canadian production house LOFT Entertainment and US-based sports & real estate company Oak View Group.[3]
Notable participants
Notable speakers and performers who have been a part of the event include:
2010 Spotlight on India – Rock Showcase featured a number of South-Asian-Canadian acts such as J'sin who performed tracks from his Fatlab's produced first album, Born.[8]
Canadian Music Fest
Since 2009 [citation needed] Canadian Music Week has referred to the festival component of the event as Canadian Music Fest, which it calls "Canada's largest new music festival".[9]
Startup Launchpad
In 2016, CMW hosted its first annual Startup Launchpad event, a pitch competition for startups in the music industry.[10] Seven startups were selected to pitch their business to potential investors and a judging panel including Michael Wekerle and Ted Cohen. The first finalists of this event were Mugatunes, an intercollegiate music sharing site, Audiokite Research, a market research company for musicians,[11] Mission Control, a music management platform,[12] Aybo, Trebba, and Notetracks, a music collaboration app.[13]
In 2016, the CMW launched an award show, called the Canadian Radio Music Awards. The show, similar to the Juno Awards, recognized and celebrated Canadian music artists. The award show has not been held since 2018.[14]
