As we continue the Mondo tradition of this important opening panel, Variety Executive Music Editor Jem Aswad kickstarts our Mondo 2024 conference with a panel of industry experts and provocateurs.

Variety Executive Music Editor Jem Aswad leads a discussion with USC Annenberg Innovation Lab Chairman Emeritus Jonathan Taplin, author of The End of Reality; Grammy-nominated songwriter and recording artist Jessy Wilson; and noted scientist, author and storyteller Dr. Moiya McTier for their expert perspectives on AI, innovation and the future of the music business.

For the session's opening keynote, Variety's Jem Aswad will sit down with Willard Ahdritz, where he will share his perspectives on the state of the industry in 2023 and the opportunities that exist.

In what has become a Mondo tradition, we're proud to kick off Mondo 2023 with Variety's Executive Music Editor Jem Aswad leading an important discussion with industry leaders addressing the state of our industry, its challenges and opportunities going forward. The impact of AI, the ever-volatile live entertainment sector, market conditions and much more will be discussed.

When the live music and comedy venue industry was at risk of mass collapse with COVID shutdowns, the National Independent Venue Association (NIVA) formed and created a movement across the country to Save Our Stages. NIVA did the unimaginable -- it secured $16 billion in federal emergency relief. Get insights from NIVA co-founders and board members about what the association’s focus is for the future now that venues, promoters and festivals are back and navigating today’s challenges.

After a harrowing couple of years for the live-entertainment industry, the coronavirus has diminished and artists and festivals are back at nearly full strength. But with a glut of tours and festivals competing for limited fan budgets amid record-high ticket prices and an uncertain economy, how is it all going? We kick off Mondo 2022 with live music leaders and what promises to be a lively -- and important -- discussion.

We welcome you to an intimate conversation with artist managers extraordinaire Ed Millett, Co-CEO and Wendy Ong, President of TaP Music, representing some of the world's most important and iconic artists including Dua Lipa, Lana Del Rey, Ellie Goulding and more. Variety's Deputy Music Editor Jem Aswad hosts.

Just when it seemed that the music industry had settled around a new model — one where live entertainment is an artist’s main source of revenue — the pandemic completely up-ended the business. Suddenly, publishing and recorded music began growing in value exponentially while the concert business was almost completely shut down for nearly a year and a half. But with the industry slowly — and hopefully — returning to pre-pandemic conditions, what happens next? Will the touring business return fully to normal within a year? Two years? Ever? (And how many independent concert venues will still be in business if and when it does?) Is livestreaming here to stay? And will publishing and recorded-music catalogs keep growing in value, or is this a bubble? It’s all a moving target, but we’ll gather leaders from key industry sectors to try to make some sense of it and offer possible pathways forward.

Like virtually every business, the music industry has been up-ended by the pandemic: Live entertainment, which was previously the financial engine of the business, is in crisis, while recorded-music revenues and streaming numbers are up, and the value of copyrights is soaring. How are these sectors of the industry coping, and what happens next?