MUMBAI: The annual International business event for music eco-system- Midem is just around the corner. The four day conference accompanied with training, festivals and competitions, will take place on first of February at Palais des Festivals, Cannes, France. Like most countries, Indian music professionals are also gearing up for the conference. Music label companies like Sony music (India), Universal music (India), Times Music and Saregama will be participating to share their expertise and learn through the forum.

Times Music COO Mandar Thakur will be a speaker for two sessions-'Streaming: A sustainable platform for artists’ and 'Building an artist’s career, from discovery to success’. He will be providing his expertise acquired over 20 years of experience in the music business.

Universal Music Group South Asia and EMI Music South Asia Devraj Sanyal; Universal Music Publishing MD Achille Forler; Sony music India and Middle East president Shridhar Subramaniam; Sony Music international music and special products director Arjun Sankalia; Saregama MD Surya Mantha; Saregama India SVP music Adarsh Gupta and Saregama Internet products and services head Avinash Mudaliar are the few top level executives who will be participating from India.

Saregama India SVP music Adarsh Gupta shares his experience about the forum, "This is a very good platform for digital and publishing businesses overseas. It provides you an opportunity to meet professionals and experts of the world. It is essentially for publishing businesses and digital platforms."

He further said that it is an effective business forum that has worked very well for them.

Sony Music international music and special products director Arjun Sankalia had last appeared at Midem in 2006. Sankalia said, "This is my second trip to Midem. It helps to meet small labels and independent labels and help expand businesses. It is a forum to interact."

The third edition of Midem has four stages and 40 gigs. This year Brazil is the 'Country of Honour’ at Midem and in this context a very special attention will be given to the guest country. Meanwhile, Asia is highlighted for 2014 Midem festival. Each year, Midem explores innovative collaborations between music and brands. This year Midem will have two following sessions namely Electronic Beats By Deutsche Telekom and Replay & Charli Xcx.

WME (USA) global music head Marc GeigerMarc; singer and songwriter (UK) Rita Ora; CISAC (France) president composer and producer Jean-Michel Jarre; i.am.angel Foundation (USA) president and global music artist will.i.am; and 300 (USA) founder Lyor Cohen; Because Music (UK/France) founder and CEO Emmanuel de Buretel; and The Orchard (UK) founder and VP International Scott Cohen are the few speakers of Midem.

In the competition section, this year’s Midem will witness a new international competition- OpenMic, which is a crowdsourced part of Midem 2014 conference programmes. After nearly a month of competition, 23 session proposals and 14784 votes, four sessions- 'Audio and visual streaming: the progression and promotion of music artists’; 'How Can Digital Music Do Better? Key collaborations for a sustainable growth’; 'The Future of Jazz & Classical’; and 'A Musician as a Startup: The Rise of the Musicpreneurl’, were selected.