In the wake of Kindiefest, there has been a lot of interest in collaboration, in trying to work together in the kids' music community. Two newly-created entities offer the possibility of both greater information sharing as well as higher visibility.
Separated by just a single letter.
The first is the Kindie Music Association, established by Tor Hyams and Kimberly Rowell and first unveiled at Kindiefest. Its purpose is to "promote, support, and recognize family music artists and those individuals directly involved with the kindie community, in an effort to advance the genre and advocate for all its members."
Well, when you put it that way, the organization is clearly an attempt to serve as an alternative to the GRAMMY organization, with kids' artists perhaps feeling slighted by the recent decision to merge the two children's GRAMMY awards into one. The structure is similar, with voting members limited to artists, producers, and other creators. Other interested folks (e.g., me) can sign up for Associate membership.
At $150 per year for membership, it's not cheap (especially for Associate membership), but the organization may offer some value to artists, depending on what happens with the Kindie Music Awards and product discounts.
The other development sprung out of discussions between Bill Childs and Susie Tennant from Town Hall Seattle at Kindiefest, and it's called KinDIY. Unlike the KMA (which includes the award process), the value of KinDIY will be much more apparent to industry folks than the broad kids music audience. It's a wiki designed to provide information on artists, venues, websites, radio shows, etc. It will allow artists and other folks to provide - and later, find - information that should make it easier for them to find venues to play at, radio shows to play their music, or vice versa.
There was always a lot of energy and good vibes coming out of Kindiefest in the past, but this is the first people are leaving the conference with some tangible action occurring as a result. For the moment, it's mostly behind-the-scenes stuff, but it has the potential to have a big impact on the genre.
