cmj

CMJ CEO releases statement about the state of CMJ

Since we wondered aloud back in April, “Is CMJ happening this year?” there has been very little news coming from CMJ, as to this year’s festival. Despite tweeting and Facebooking “We love all our dedicated fans. Please bear with us” at the end of June, there have been no updates to CMJ.com and the festival page still has 2015 info on it. The festival usually happens in mid-October and we are currently just two days from September. In informal conversations over the last couple months with various label folks, bands, venue bookers, and booking agents, and people still working at college radio, everything has pointed to CMJ not happening in 2016.

A lengthy story on Stereogum this week titled “CMJ Sure Seems To Be Over. So How Come Nobody Is Talking About It?,” however, has jostled the company into at least some activity. After saying “CMJ will absolutely happen this year,” earlier, CMJ CEO  Adam Klein sent Pitchfork a longer, if still pretty vague, statement:

CMJ has perhaps the richest history as ‘the’ platform for emerging artists to be exposed to New York and is credited by so many of the greatest artists as where they broke through.

We are all totally committed to protecting CMJ’s unique and ‘live’ heritage while adapting to the ever changing demands of artists, fans and the music industry by embracing supplementary engagement through digital and mobile media connectivity.

We invested into our 2015 Music Marathon which had such great energy and fresh experiences showing part of where we are heading with CMJ.

A little patience and a whole lot less wild and unsubstantiated speculation is what we need right now. CMJ will continue as an innovative force and a strong presence going forward. We’ll share more about our 2016 and 2017 program soon.

Adam Klein
CEO CMJ

We look forward to hearing more details. October definitely wouldn’t be the same for us without CMJ (We put on a lot of CMJ day parties as you may know). Stay tuned.

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