European music professionals are enthusiastic about high-quality European and Dutch talent

Highlights festivals
Eurosonic Noorderslag presented 293 acts and bands from 26 different European countries. Among them were 21 Irish acts from focus country Ireland and 125 Dutch acts, mainly performing at Noorderslag. Television legends Jools Holland and Ray Cokes both made programs at Eurosonic Noorderslag. This year saw the second edition of the admission-free stage Eurosonic Air at the Grote Markt in Groningen. The EBBA Public Choice Award was awarded to Selah Sue on Thursday. The Pop Award was presented to De Jeugd van Tegenwoordig, who received the Award Saturday at Noorderslag while surfing over the audience.

Conference Highlights
The study “Music Crossing Borders”, that was presented by the European Music Office in cooperation with Eurosonic Noorderslag and Nielsen on Thursday, showed that the European market is poorly accessible to European music. The report can be downloaded fromwww.emo.org/onair_news.php. Simultaneously Eurosonic Noorderslag showed that both the European and Dutch music are of high quality.

Eurosonic Noorderslag kicked off last Wednesday with the presentation of two European music awards: European Border Breakers Awards (EBBA Awards) and European Festival Awards (EFA).

On Saturday Buma Cultuur announced that the Dutch music exports in 2010 rose by 25% compared to 2009. For the first time Eurosonic Noorderslag presented an extensive interactive program, with presentations and keynotes from leading speakers and companies. The popular program was concluded with the presentation of the Interactive Awards to Mobile Roadie and Only Seven Left. On Saturday, the festivals united in the European Talent Exchange Program (ETEP), showed an enthusiastic interest in a wide range of acts that performed in Groningen. Eurosonic Noorderslag is expecting to see many of the acts on the European festivals this summer.

Once again more live broadcasts and reports by European media
This year, Eurosonic Noorderslag was broadcast extensively on radio, television and the Internet throughout Europe. Radio and television channels broadcasting from Eurosonic were among others the BBC (UK), DR Musik (Denmark), YLE (Finland), RTBF Pure FM (Belgium), Le Mouv “(France), RUV (Iceland) , RTE (Ireland), Radio Belgrade (Serbia) and WDR (Germany). In the Netherlands NOS, NTR, 3FM, Radio 6, 3voor12, de Volkskrant and nu.nl presented comprehensive reporting on radio, television and the Internet. The EBBA Awards were broadcast live on YouTube and recorded for TV. The EBBA Awards ceremony can be seen on TV in many European countries this year.

Visitors
The completely sold out festivals Eurosonic and Noorderslag attracted 33,000 visitors this year. The number of visitors is unchanged from the 2011 edition. With 3,150 conference participants the entire European music industry was present in Groningen. The number of journalists and media doubled over the last year.

The official figures of Eurosonic Noorderslag 2012 are as follows:

Total number of visitors Eurosonic Noorderslag (sold out) 33,000
Visitors Conference (sold out) 3,150
Nationalities 41
Acts 293
Media and journalists 404
EBU radio stations 28
ETEP festivals 70
International festivals 413
Number of stages Eurosonic 34
Number of stages Noorderslag 11

More information about Eurosonic Noorderslag is available at www.eurosonic-noorderslag.nl