Beyond The Music Announce 2026 Conference and New Music Programme
Beyond The Music, Greater Manchester’s global music and media industry forum and new music showcase festival announces first seat releases for the All Content AI Summit convened by Prime Minister of the UK, Andy Burnham; alongside details of the first run of speakers for its groundbreaking, policy-setting conference programme, taking place across MediaCity, Salford for the very first time on 6, 7, 8 & 9 October 2026.
The 2026 programme, titled Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness will embody Beyond The Music’s core ethos: to raise, discuss and solve the biggest challenges impacting the creative industries in the present day. The MediaCity campus in Salford, Greater Manchester, will become a hub for some of the strongest voices in music, tech, film, gaming and content, and political leaders; as they convene to protect, preserve and expand our industries for generations to come.
Conference
Andy Burnham, Prime Minister of the UK, convenes a first-of-its-kind, full-day All Content AI Summit on Friday 9th October. The session will combine global, key-stakeholders from every corner of the creative industries to align on a shared, rights-based position for AI and ways to protect art and its creation, whilst ensuring commerce can grow and flourish alongside modern technology - ‘The Manchester Principles’.
The first speakers taking part in the three-day conference schedule tackle everything from pioneering business models, cross-sector collaboration, the political and economic value of the music and media industries, new economic models, live music ecosystems and much more.
Announced to join actor Steve Coogan and director Michael Winterbottom today are some of the most influential names in the modern creative industries and UK politics, from Stacey Tang, Co-President of RCA Records UK and Chair of the BRIT Awards Committee, Sophie Jones, incoming CEO of Royal Television Society and YolanDa Brown OBE DL, Artist and Chair of BPI to Bev Craig, the newly appointed Mayor of Greater Manchester.
Leading the addition of Beyond The Music’s “The team behind…” sessions, highlighting key campaigns from the year, will be Tommas Arnby, the music executive, festival promoter and manager behind global alt-rock sensation Yungblud; and Dan Lambert, manager of hotly-debated Irish rap group Kneecap. Each will sit down at MediaCity to discuss the trials, successes and teams behind some of the present moment’s most talked about artists; with further artist sessions still to be announced.
Elsewhere, Tom Gray of The Ivors Academy will deliver an Address; Dr Jo Twist OBE, CEO of the BPI will give a keynote; British-Ugandan singer-songwriter Daudi Matsiko will take part in an ‘In Conversation’ session in partnership with Music Support; and Michael Adex, Founder and Chief Executive of NQ and manager of Manchester artist Aitch, will return to Beyond The Music as both a speaker and curator, alongside the likes of Sunderland singer-songwriter Tom A Smith.
More details on the 2026 conference programme, and further speakers will be announced in the coming weeks. See below for the full list of speakers revealed so far, and for the full conference programme and delegate tickets visit: https://www.beyondthemusic.co.uk/
New-Music Festival
By night, Beyond The Music will transform a variety of spaces across the MediaCity and MediaCity Studios campus into a hub of new music discovery. Carefully curated by Oli Wilson, co-founder and lead music programmer of Beyond The Music, the festival’s pledge to find, book and nurture talents both new and established has quickly seen it defined as one of the UK’s most diverse and immersive showcases; pledging a 50/50 gender split across its lineups and ensuring underrepresented and undersupported genres, scenes and individuals – particularly those from Greater Manchester – are offered equal opportunities to grow their fanbases and professional networks regardless of their level of experience within the music industry.
This year, Beyond The Music will join forces with a series of exceptional, industry-leading tastemakers to curate each of its festival stages. The lead curators for the 2026 edition include Michael Adex (Founder & Chief Executive, NQ); Chris Hawkins (Presenter, BBC Radio 6 Music); John Robb (Founder, Louder Than War); Emma Wiggins (Rock & Metal Alliance) and Dellessa James (Amazon Music +44).
They join a host of previously announced curators including Audio North, BBC Introducing, FOCUS Wales, Heist or Hit, Melodic, RTB, Studio 88, SXSW, Treehouse Manchester, OpenLab, The Line of Best Fit, Notion and Dot to Dot Festival in solidifying Beyond The Music’s mission to transform the careers of some of grassroots music’s most deserving talents.