Beyond The Music moves to Salford and puts AI, wealth gaps and creator rights on the table

Beyond The Music’s 2026 conference programme lands in the 2 July news cycle with proper industry weight. The Manchester-rooted forum and new music showcase will move to MediaCity in Salford from 6 to 9 October, with the conference running from 7 to 9 October. The topics are exactly where independent music’s pressure points now sit: catalogue acquisition, the creative wealth gap, AI’s impact on art, and the broader question of who actually benefits when culture becomes an asset class. The event will also open with a 24th-anniversary premiere of 24 Hour Party People, alongside a conversation with director Michael Winterbottom and actor Steve Coogan. That Factory Records connection is smart. Manchester’s music mythology is being put in dialogue with the modern machinery of rights, data, ownership and survival. For artists, this is not abstract conference chatter. It is the map of the next fight.

Source: https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/news/beyond-the-music-confirms-conference-programme-for-2026-edition