Studies and observations

As part of the asso­ci­a­tion’s annu­al call for sub­scrip­tions, as well as when new entrants join the net­work, mem­bers com­plete a “sim­ple” ques­tion­naire includ­ing key indi­ca­tors : annu­al bud­get, annu­al FTE, type of con­tract (CDI, CCDU, inter­mit­tent CDD, etc.), etc., which enable us to mea­sure the char­ac­ter­is­tics and “health” of the sec­tor and its play­ers. This data col­lec­tion incor­po­rates a “gen­der” com­po­nent to bet­ter ana­lyze the pres­ence of women in the sec­tor, the typol­o­gy of posi­tions they hold, etc. This data col­lec­tion enables us to observe the sit­u­a­tion and changes in the socio-eco­nom­ic real­i­ties of our mem­bers, and there­fore, by extrap­o­la­tion, the health of the world music sec­tor.

In addi­tion to col­lec­tive stud­ies in which the net­work may par­tic­i­pate, it is cur­rent­ly car­ry­ing out the fol­low­ing stud­ies :

Flash study :
2 years after the COVID crisis, a real or supposed recovery ?

Through­out 2023, we’ve been able to read and hear that 2022 was the year of the COVID cri­sis, that audi­ences were back on track, that indi­ca­tors were back in the green, and so on. This diag­no­sis is undoubt­ed­ly true if we rea­son glob­al­ly, but we felt it was impor­tant to take a clos­er look at it in terms of the play­ers, sec­tors, etc.

What’s in it for World Music play­ers ? Was 2022 as good as the pre-COVID years ? Or do dif­fi­cul­ties per­sist ? Have oth­er con­texts (eco­nom­ic cri­sis, eco­log­i­cal issues, changes in pro­gram­ming teams, etc.) played a role in this recov­ery : pos­i­tive or neg­a­tive ?

Faced with these ques­tions, but also in response to numer­ous alerts from Zone Franche mem­bers indi­cat­ing that dif­fi­cul­ties were per­sist­ing, in 2023 we launched among net­work mem­bers the flash study “2 years after the COVID cri­sis, a real or sup­posed recov­ery?”. The aim is to use clear, objec­tive indi­ca­tors to put 2019 and 2022 into per­spec­tive. The results will be pre­sent­ed at a Net­work Meet­ing in 2024.

Study of the impact of international trade shows on the development of Zone Franche members : observation over several years

Par­tic­i­pa­tion in inter­na­tion­al trade shows is cru­cial for play­ers in the world music sec­tor, as it helps to raise the pro­file and struc­ture of the indus­try. But for many orga­ni­za­tions, tak­ing part in such events rep­re­sents a real invest­ment. It is there­fore essen­tial for Zone Franche to ensure and facil­i­tate the pres­ence of the net­work and its mem­bers on the mar­kets. With this in mind, the asso­ci­a­tion also deploys con­sid­er­able human and finan­cial resources to enable mem­bers who so wish to take part in trade shows.

Faced with such invest­ment, it seems essen­tial to mea­sure the impact of inter­na­tion­al trade shows on the artists’ rep­re­sen­ta­tive orga­ni­za­tions and Zone Franche mem­ber artists who take part in them : this will be the aim of this study con­duct­ed over sev­er­al years. Mea­sur­ing this impact will make it pos­si­ble, ulti­mate­ly, to con­sid­er changes or adapt sup­port for pro­fes­sion­als who take part in these trade shows ; to pro­vide bet­ter sup­port for pro­fes­sion­als ; to cre­ate a dia­logue with events to improve the expe­ri­ence of pro­fes­sion­als and the impact of their pres­ence on their busi­ness.

This project is being car­ried out in part­ner­ship with Michaël Spanu, a researcher with a degree in soci­ol­o­gy from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter and a spe­cial­ist in the music indus­try.

Ini­tial­ly, the study will focus sole­ly on WOMEX, but may also include Babel Music XP at a lat­er date. A first phase is planned from 2024 (evo­lu­tion of the impact of WOMEX 2023) to 2026.