Your IMS Ibiza 2026 Programme Guide for Independent Labels and Distributors

The International Music Summit runs April 22 to 24 in Ibiza, hosted at Mondrian and Hyde. Ibiza in Cala Llonga. The theme this year is “Reclaim The Dancefloor.” The framing is not accidental. It signals that the people who built the independent electronic music sector are being asked, directly, whether they still control the conditions they built it in. For independent labels, distributors, and professional artists operating in Europe, IMS is three days of concentrated signal about where the business is heading. What follows is a session-by-session guide to the programme moments that matter most for your operation.

Wednesday 22 April

12:05 - IMS Business Report 2026 | Summit Stage Indoor

Every year, IMS opens with the Business Report presented by MIDiA Research founder Mark Mulligan. This is the annual industry valuation: a full analysis of cultural, financial, and economic trends shaping the global electronic music market. For distributors and label services companies, this document benchmarks what the market is actually worth and how revenue is flowing through the ecosystem. It is the clearest starting point available for any strategic conversation about the next twelve months.

12:35 - IMS Business Report Analysis | Summit Stage Indoor

The analysis that immediately follows brings Dan Chalmers (YouTube Music EMEA, Google), Finlay Johnson (CEO, AFEM), and Mark Mulligan back to the stage to translate the numbers into decisions. Streaming economics, market consolidation, and where independent labels sit within that picture are all on the table. This session answers the question the report raises: so what do we do with this?

16:15 - Get Played, Get Paid: Ibiza Club Focus Revisited | Summit Stage Outdoor

Hosted by AFEM, this session has been running for over a decade. The premise is straightforward: copyright societies should use modern tracking technology to ensureaccurate distribution of license fees from clubs and festivals to the music creators and rights holders entitled to them. The panel includes Yuri Dokter (CEO and founder of KUVO Powered by DJ Monitor, based in the Netherlands) and representatives from BMAT and SGAE, moderated by AFEM co-founder Kurosh Nasseri. For European independent labels and rights administrators, this is a direct progress check. The technology exists. The question this session addresses is whether the institutions responsible for collecting and distributing these fees have actually moved.

17:00 - Keynote Interview: Yann Pissenem | Summit Stage Indoor

Founder and CEO of The Night League and Ushuaïa Entertainment, Yann Pissenem built some of the most commercially successful nightlife venues in the world while maintaining a clear creative and cultural point of view. The session, moderated by Pete Tong, is less about the venues themselves and more about the architecture of long-term independent decision making at scale. For anyone building an independent business in electronic music, this conversation is worth the time.

16:55 - Eastern Europe on the Rise: New Voices, New Futures | Summit Stage Outdoor

Presented by Telekom Electronic Beats, this panel brings together festival directors, label executives, and label owners from Poland, Hungary, Germany, and the wider CEE region to map how Eastern Europe has developed its own ecosystem over the last decade. The conversation includes Basia Klaczak (Unsound, Poland), Laszlo Papp (Inota Festival and Electronic Beats, Hungary), and Marie Montexier (label owner, Germany). For European independent labels and distributors thinking about territory expansion and A&R strategy, this session names what is already visible in the streaming data: the next wave of catalogue value in European electronic music is being built outside the traditional market centres.

Thursday 23 April

12:00 - The AI Divide: What Authenticity Means to Fans Now | Summit Stage Indoor

Deezer’s CMO Maria Garrido presents findings from a study conducted by Deezer and Ipsos across 9,000 people in eight countries on how listeners perceive fully AI-generated music. The implications are direct for labels and distributors managing catalogue decisions and release strategy. Fan trust is not a soft metric. It determines whether a release earns algorithmic momentum or disappears quietly. This session gives that question a data-backed answer.

12:15 - Mathame Presents NEO: A World Where Humans and AI Coexist | Summit

Stage IndoorImmediately following, Italian artist Mathame and his brother Riccardo Giovanelli present NEO, the first large-scale AI awareness project operating at the centre of entertainment. It is notable not just for what it is, but for what it signals about how forward-thinking independent artists are choosing to position themselves in relation to AI rather than waiting for the industry to resolve the question for them.

12:25 - AFEM x AIxchange: Shaping New Revenue Streams in the Age of Generative AI | Summit Stage Indoor

Ralph Boege (CEO, Paradise Worldwide) presents AIxchange, a consent-based licensing framework for recordings, compositions, and metadata used in AI training. The framework is grounded in transparency, attribution, and fair compensation, building directly on the AFEM AI Principles. For independent labels with deep catalogues, this is not an abstract policy debate. AI companies are training on music right now. The question is whether independent rights holders are in the room where those licensing terms are being set.

12:35 - AI: Inside the Moral Revolution | Summit Stage Indoor

The AFEM-hosted panel that ties all three AI sessions together. Participants include Aly Gillani (Artist and Label Relations Lead, Bandcamp), Edward Balassanian (CEO, Aimi), Jen O’Neill (business affairs consultant), Maria Garrido (Deezer), and Marc Azaïs (Director of Business Development and Foresight, SACEM), moderated by Jay Ahern (Chief Strategy Officer, AFEM). The session asks where the lines are and who gets to draw them. Independent operators who have not yet formed a position on AI licensing should treat this as a briefing rather than a discussion.

12:00 - From Data to Decisions: Why Artists and Teams Are Building Their Own Operating System | Summit Stage Outdoor

This session runs in parallel and addresses what has become the central operational challenge for professional artist management and label services: data fragmentation. Artist teams have more data available than at any point in music business history. Streaming numbers, social performance, fan behaviour, marketing attribution. None of it is connected. The managers of Chase and Status and Goldford discuss what centralising that data into a single operating system has unlocked in practice. For independent labels and distributors still managing catalogue data across disconnected spreadsheets and platform dashboards, this conversation is a direct mirror.

12:35 - Beatport Future Vision | Summit Stage Outdoor

Matt Gralen (President and CFO, Beatport) and Helen Sartory (Chief Revenue Officer, Beatport) share what is coming at The Beatport Group in 2026 and beyond. Beatport is the majority stakeholder in IMS and a central distribution and discovery platform for the electronic music market. What they announce here shapes the commercial landscape forindependent labels and distributors across Europe for the next twelve months.

Friday 24 April

The Ninja Tune session closes out the summit on day three. Co-founder Matt Black examines how an artist-led independent ethos has been sustained across a roster that now spans more than seven sub-labels and more than three decades of operation. The structure Ninja Tune built, centred on genuine ownership and creative control rather than distribution dependency, offers a model that many European independent operators are attempting to replicate. The difference is that Ninja Tune built the infrastructure first. Day three concludes with the IMS Dalt Vila closing celebration at Ibiza’s UNESCO World Heritage site.

The Pattern Across Three Days

The through-line across the most relevant sessions at IMS 2026 is not technology. It is the gap between what the independent sector has built culturally and what it has built operationally. Labels with strong catalogues and artist relationships are still running on infrastructure designed for a different era. The royalty distribution systems are incomplete. The data environments are fragmented. The AI licensing frameworks are being written by parties who have no particular reason to prioritise independent interests. The summit is three days of the industry talking openly about these gaps. What happens after the summit is decided by the operators who were paying attention.