Showcase PEI promotes local talent to international audience

Delegates from six countries have descendedon Prince Edward Island for a week of local music and hospitality.

Showcase PEI is an annual industryevent that caters to music festival programmers, agents, promoters and venue programmers,with the goal of helping expose local talent to international audiences.

Rob Oakie, the executive director of Music PEI, says over the past nine years, the showcase has helped create $2 million worth of work for Island artists.

20 artists, 20 minutes

Twenty artists are taking part in this year's showcase. Each act is given 20 minutes to give visiting delegates a sampling of their live act. Oakie says they also set up one-on-one 10-minute business meetings.

"It's a little like speed dating, but they get a chance to put a face to a name of the delegates and give a bit of an introduction," he said.

Gerry Paul, a festival programmer from New Zealand, is one of the delegates taking part in this year's event.

"I saw this as an opportunity to get over here and see more of the acts and try to have a P.E.I. focus at one of the festivals over the next few years," he said.

'You have to see them live'

Paul says some of the acts he's looking forward to are the East Pointers, Dylan Menzie,Catherine MacLellan and Dennis Ellsworth.

"You have to see them live," Paul said. "You see them and you come away with such a different impressions. You can get all that charisma and the way they fill a room with their personality. It's so important."