The Station Sessions are back - Launching 1st of September!

The Station Sessions are back for a new season of regular live music for commuters at St Pancras International. The new season kicks off with Marcus Foster and Lotte Mullan, followed by 2 months of the best emerging acts the UK music scene has to offer.

This season the Station Sessions are moving upstairs and will have a slightly different feel, as well as a different location. The stage will be set up in the space between the Eurostar platforms, The Betjeman Arms Pub and Carluccio’s restaurant.

In case you aren’t familiar with the upstairs at St Pancras just look for the Olympic rings or the Stations’ trademark Dent clock face.

With the massive success of the Station Sessions festival, we intend to keep a healthy buzz surrounding the Station’s music scene. The festival showcased a mix of established acts (Kids In Glass Houses), experimental acts (Submotion Orchestra), new acts (Charlotte O'Connor), and great fun acts you just want to shake your rump to (Vintage Trouble). We’ve never seen commuters so happy!

This season we continue to change the mould, with an exclusive “Live In The Living Room” type of aesthetic!  Sessions this season will have a more intimate feel with great vocals, acoustic guitars, clapping hands, bar stalls and armchairs, so get there early to claim the best seats in the house.

The Sessions resume on Thursday September 1^st at 6pm, and will be on every Thursday thereafter from 6-7pm until the end of October. Give us a shout on Facebook or Twitter if you need help finding us at our new location.

Find more info on:

Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/StationSessions

Twitter - http://twitter.com/#!/StationSessions

St Pancras - http://stpancras.com/Events/The-Station-Sessions

Website - http://www.stationsessions.com/home

Views from the Station Sessions Festival - WK1 by Charm Factory

"Working with Syllabus and the team at Place PR for the launch of the inaugural Station Sessions Festival has been fantastic. It's a really unique proposition for artists to engage with the general public in a location that ordinarily would be out of bounds. Having worked with them on sessions for rising Charmfactory (www.charmfactory.co.uk) artists over the past 12 months including Delta Maid, Liam Bailey, Scoundrels and Friends Electric I knew the potential that lay for bigger acts at St Pancras International and how smooth it would all go, of course.

Having Guillemots (facebook.com/guillemotsmusic) launch the festival was such a great moment - I think the photo above taken by snapper Brendan Doherty really captures the spirit of the event - the station concourse was buzzing. The icing on the cake was Nerina Pallot (facebook.com/NerinaPallotOfficial) playing a full hour set with a string quartet on Friday evening to mark the release of her new album 'Year of the Wolf'. So many people who ordinarily never go to gigs stopped to take in these special performances, not to mention the legions of fans who came down.

Would I do it again? Hells yeah, try stopping me. Would I recommend other artsits to do it, yes, in a flash. "
LL, CharmFactory


We love when a good plan comes together and it certainly did for the launch of the festival, thanks to the lovely people at CharmFactory.

We're on the move!!

Busy, busy, busy, and it's about to get even busier!!!

As of the 1st of June, we will be moving out of our slightly dark and dingy basement in Camden, and into a beautifully bright and airy Georgian office in Angel! Dispite the ridiculous amount of packing that's got to be done over the next few days, we're all really looking forward to it. A change of scenery is always good for a creative mind, so they say. We now just need to work out how to bubble wrap the fish!

So, for all your records, our new office address is....

The Syllabus Agency
359 Goswell Road
London
EC1V 7JL
Telephone Number: 02077549177

Happy packing!!

KF

Earth Hour 2011

Here at The Syllabus Agency we got our Earth Hour party started by launching the ‘lights out’ event a day early during office hours!

As first time celebrators, the rush was on to complete lists of work before 5pm sharp! Finally, at 5.10pm lights went down, Computers put to sleep and plug sockets were switched off. Earth Hour had arrived in all her glory and we felt her essence, so in honor of our country England and Her Majesty Queen Liz we cracked open the beers and prepared for the band to arrive.

It wasn’t just a random act in which we Joined global cites and great British landmarks that bowed down to the power of Earth for an hour of darkness that would inevitably fill us with more light at the end. Landmarks such as EDF Energy, The London Eye, Manchester United Old Trafford, No 10 Downing Street and six bridges across the Thames including the iconic Tower Bridge were involved. Even Queen Elizabeth joined households around the world for Earth Hour with lights going off at Buckingham Palace.

The overcoats a London based band Inspired by Pop music and the love of ambience in empty rooms filled our office floor with acoustic sounds and numbers such as “Give yourself to me” and “Hangover Square.” With Matt’s quirky lyrics and Kate’s sweet harmonies we felt entirely in the Spirit of Earth hour.

4 months into 2011 and our planet has witnessed more than 5 natural disasters. From forest fires to earthquakes and of course a tsunami. Here at the syllabus Agency we understand and feel the necessity to be more carbon efficient and less wasteful in this current climate. We used Earth Hour to establish a fresh start of corporate consciousness. So here is our commitment to earth. We shout out with pride to you and the rest of the world from one office to another. Together we can make a difference!

Our Earth Hour film is Coming soon.

Euro Star Staff Get Signed Demos With Love

The Station Sessions has become a must do for Tourists, Commuters and Music Lovers all around london eager to experience top quality live music in completely unexpected surroundings. With regular faces joining us every week as they wait for and sometimes miss their trains, the scene is becoming pleasantly familier. However last week we were joined by a new audience, St Pancras International’s staff!
A number of Eurostar staff members came down to enjoy the music and even bought Love In The Asylum’s EP. Lovely to see the Stations Sessions bringing joy to regulars and still capturing new audiences.

An introduction, A fairwell and a Birthday celebration. "Pheeeewwww what a week."

Hello, I’m the new Intern. Name's Hanna-Jade, people call me H-J for short term efficiency. Feel free. I’ll be chatting to you on Twitter or Facebook and also updating you with all our electrifying news stories. With David’s departure I will have some very big shoes to fill (literally). So a very BIG congratulations to David, he has attained the job role of Communications Assistant for the Red Bull Reporter. GO DAVID GO GO GO! He will be sadly missed. Great guy!

A shrine of remembrance in his honor. 

And last but not least! Gideon or shall we say Gman, who has a great passion for the art of Ghetto HipHop, turned a year older last week, and with age comes responsibility. See Gideon below recycling his Rapping Paper. Good lad! Happy Birthday Gideon! 

Once a Junior Gunner, always a Junior Gunner! 

Kindest Regards 

HJ  

ONE BILLION DOLLARS $$$$$$$$$$$$$

Spotify - Is it worth it?

We here at the Syllabus Agency are avid users of the Spotify product. In an office that we share with the Green House Group, were just over 10 people work, I believe just one of us Owns a Spotify Premium Account. I have used Spotify since it was launched in the UK and have watched it grow form strength to strength with great interest.

I was reading the Telegraph over a nice cup of tea and a crumpet this morning and while casting an eye over the front page of the Business Section (as one does), I noticed that there was an article on my beloved Spotify.

Turning to page 3 straight away I saw this head line:

Now as you can imagine I was quite shocked as well as being surprised - as for a music programme that certainly does not have subscribers even close to 1/50th of Facebook's (assuming Facebook's recent valuation of  $50bn) - I had to ask myself, "How could Spotify (in this market) be worth $1bn after only 2 years in business"?

The reason, I have read, is because a Russian Billionaire who has invested significant sums previously in other fast growing web-businesses such as Facebook & Groupon has recently purchased around 5% of Spotify for $50m. Even though this has happened, Spotify have announced that they are to keep raising funds with a $100m target.

But what will they do with this money?

I believe the real objective behind this money raising is to break America! The easy assumption is that the company will turn around and redistribute its new investors’ funds to the big music labels, as part of the distribution deals it is cutting to get into the U.S.

Spotify already has deals with Sony & EMI & is supposedly closing in on one with Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, the world’s biggest label. 

A rough estimate is that Rhapsody, Napster, MOG & Rdio  have a total of about 1 million subscribers, about the same that Spotify has on its own. So in order to really make the case for music you rent by the month, Spotify is going to have to lay out serious marketing cash to get people to pay attention.

All I can say is that it certainly is going to become more interesting over the next 6 months for this "Hugely Valuable" company that is still only a baby!

DC