Music Beyond Mainstream (MBM) is an 11-strong consortium of large-scale regional venues: The Anvil Basingstoke; Usher Hall Edinburgh; De Montfort Hall Leicester; Colston Hall Bristol; The Sage Gateshead; Warwick Arts Centre; The Bridgewater Hall Manchester; Philharmonic Hall Liverpool and Brighton Dome.

MBM world music tours over the last three years have included: Taj Mahal; African Soul Rebels with Amadou & Mariam; Seu Jorge; Soul Britannia; New Orleans Nights with Alan Toussaint and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

Three years ago Knifedge started working with MBM to produce and manage one of their more complex tours, African Soul Rebels. From there we consulted with MBM on the constitution and structure.

Knifedge provides the organisation with a complete range of services. We are the central point of contact for all directors of the company, agents, producers, promoters, artists, member venues and record labels. We provide a full financial service from day-to-day bookkeeping to tour budget management and overall company finance control. We continue to provide pre-production and tour management and production advice on all aspects of MBM.

In the last 18 months Knifedge has responded to the need to more effectively coordinate the marketing of the tours. We look after all design and manufacture of print; copyright clearance, mastering and manufacture of all CD samplers that are sent out to market each tour; sourcing and co-ordination of press agents and the venues’ internal marketing departments; all media buying and more recently co-ordinating MBM’s online presence from websites through to podcast production and marketing.

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