The WMC - Winter Music Conference

Winter Music Conference is one of the most publicized annual music gatherings in the world. A pivotal platform for advancement of the industry, WMC 2009 attracted 1,910 artists and DJs, 3,228 industry delegates from 62 countries and over 70,000 event attendees for a concentrated schedule of more than 500 events presented across 5 days. Music, as one of the world’s most accessible cultural art forms, gives WMC the unique ability to cross economic, geographic and social boundaries. Over 1.3 million visitors from 183 countries log on to the WMC website each year.

For ALL THE DETAILS go to WinterMusicConference.com.

The Early Days

The Winter Music Conference has grown exponentially, now hosting over 70,000 attendees in Miami's South Beach. Dance music, as a genre, had been established over a decade before the Winter Music Conference began, by a crowd that sought an escape from the pretension of mainstream club life at the time.

"I would trace everything back, really, to disco," says Frank Broughton. He's the co-author of Last Night a DJ Saved My Life, a book that chronicles the role of the DJ in the 20th century. "Disco is hugely important, because that's really when making records specifically for a club became a popular pursuit, if you like. Before that there had been bands making records, obviously, you could dance to, but essentially they had been aiming for radio."

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