The Finnish music industry continued their energetic pro-active export push by inviting over 30 international music industry professionals from the Nordic Countries, the UK, Ireland and Germany, to attend the Helsinki Export Showcase arranged by Music Export Finland and the Finnish Music Information Centre on 4th - 5th September. Your editor was lucky enough to be invited and enjoyed Finnish hospitality in an unusually warm and sunny autumnal Helsinki. This is a city with a very big sky, and on the Thursday, obviously arranged by Paulina Ahokas of Musex just for the guests, the biggest and most perfect rainbow I have ever seen - is this an omen -is Finnish music about to find its pot of gold?

The event was planned to coincide with the release of a comprehensive new study that has revealed that Finnish music exports grew four-fold between 1999 and 2001. The main findings of the study were presented to the guests at the Finnish Film Institute and showed that the total value for 2001 was 15.5 million euros, this is roughly on a par with Norway, and was much better than expected. According to the report the strongest markets for Finnish music remain the Nordic countries however the biggest growth area has been the GAS territories (Germany, Austria, Switzerland). There are no signs of this growth slowing with six Finnish bands entering the German charts within the last year. Between 1999 and 2001 the sales of goods increased by a staggering 370 percent and, based on the answers given by the Finnish companies in this study, the growth is expected to sustain. The study was conducted in co-operation with all key industry organisations and embraces the entire earning logic of the industry from sales of goods and services to copyright royalties.

The guests from various European agencies, festivals and medias had plenty of time to meet up with each other and Finnish music industry representatives in a relaxed atmosphere. Juhani Merimaa has been running Club Tavastia for many years now and this famous venue, which is well known to touring bands from Europe and the US, played host to guests and showcasing bands on two nights. Live performances by acts such as Accu, Rinneradio, who played a more dance oriented set than their more usual ambient jazz based material, The Flaming Sideburns, a highly professional and high powered cross between Southside Johnny, The Stones and Lynyrd Skynrd! The Latebirds, Creamstar and the Hendrix of the accordion much admired by David Bowie, Kimmo Pohjonen.

Without doubt Finland has a good range of acts, such as Apocolyptica and others who could of course not all be showcasing for various reasons, both practical and political. Not all of the Finnish companies are involved with the event organisers, but this initiative has opened doors and started something that should eventually encourage full cooperation and hopefully benefit all of the Finnish industry.

Paulina Ahokas told me how, in retrospect, she felt the whole event had gone: "We have received lots of very satisfied feedback from the guests; all of them had seen at least one or two bands they really liked. And the export figures and statistics has been a big surprise for the most of them. Finns were really happy to meet with all these people and it seems a lot of business will generate from it.

The Guest list included:

Rich Sutcliffe X-Ray, London, Una Johnston SXSW Music Europe, Dominique Leguern Midem (Paris) Pete Schiffler Popkomm, Johan Hargeby Sound Pollution Stockholm, Philip Saxe In The City, Louise Harms Hultsfred Festival, Clive Underhill-Smith Coda Agency, London, Nick Luscombe BBC Radio/X-FM, London, Claes Olsen Öya Festivalen Oslo, Jan Reijnders The Agency Tallinn, Shaun Arnold Go North Festival, Inverness, Nils Åkesson SPOT Festival Århus, Jacob Odegaard Midtfyns Festival A/S Odense , Stephen Budd Record Producers / The Fly Magazine & The Barfly venues & The Fly radio network, London . Hilde Spille Paperclip-Agency Nijmegen, Jeremy (Jez) Thomas Metropolis Music London, Daniel Lieberberg Motor Music Berlin, Siegfried Schuller Motor Music, A & R Manager Berlin, Peter Jacobsen Soul Kitchen Copenhagen

By the way, several of us adjourned for a late night visit to the Mogambo club for more live jazz and a great selection of jazz, soul, funk and world music, which took old guys, myself and Phil Saxe of In the City to our mod days, this is a great club, stylish and comfortable, I could do with one like it near me. Helsinki has definitely got something going for it, a view shared by Englishman Paul Cheetham who now lives there permanently and works for Welldone Agency & Promotion Oy. Now if we could only extend the daylight hours in the winter…..