Trackage Scheme December 20, 2016
A look back at 2016
2016 was our busiest year yet, hands down. It’s as if we’ve been on overdrive and I can barely believe it’s nearly over. We sadly lost some of our idols along the way (David Bowie, Prince & Leonard Cohen just to name a few), we worked our socks off and developed numerous projects we’re proud of. In short, it’s been a weird and hectic year, but fun and rewarding nonetheless.
Events
January – April
We kicked off 2016 with the Sacred Noise sessions with headliners Areola Treat and DJ Geddumu (Hedon Crew) on Sunday 17th January. ‘Sacred Noise’ was a series of 10 alternative, live indie and rock music events held every Sunday. These sessions showcased Malta’s finest musical talent both on stage as well as behind the decks. We had the pleasure of hosting Plato’s Dream Machine, Lucy’s Last, Fuzzhoneys, Massacre House Party and The Ranch just to name a few.
Also in January, we hosted a David Bowie tribute event, ‘Blackstar’. It was a truly emotional and experience. Apart from the Bowie music marathon, we screened every DB music video from the very first one shot in 1972 until his latest ‘Lazarus’. We also had a face painting stand and even had some people turn up dressed up in their favourite Bowie outfit. The entrance to the event was free but we collected over €400 in donations which were given to Puttinu Cares.
May
After the overwhelming success of the first volume of ‘A night with Indie’, it was hard resisting continuing the series. Volume II was cray cray with more than 500 people buzzing the whole night away! Oh, what I’d do to go back to that night!
June
2016 also saw us hosting our first ever boat party, Odd-y-Sea, in collaboration with Sick of Ants. Despite the Germany – Italy Euro 2016 match, we still had a great turnout and a whale of a time aboard the Hornblower where we went on a voyage of great music ranging from Indie & Alternative rock to Electronica and everything in between!
July
Shortly after the boat party, we hosted the Bay Stage and the main area (Independence Gardens) at this year’s edition of the Sliema Arts Festival. We had a stellar line up consisting of bands, DJs and producers including Salvatore Muscat, Lucy’s Last, Pyramid Suns, Fabricka, Stimulus Timbre, Robert Farrugia, Stalko, CRUX, KNTRL, Frankie Calleja, Christian Tanti, Jack’s Fusion & Falcon’s Flying Circus. This was the first time we undertook such a large scale project and we received very positive feedback from the Sliema Local Council, SAF coordinators, artists, attendees as well as other event organisers!
October – November
One of our proudest achievements this year was joining the Malta takes London team. MTL is a yearly event that celebrates talent from the rock! Each year acts fly over to London to perform at an event amongst Maltese rooted artists that are already based in London. It’s a collective where the purpose is to showcase Maltese talent. Malta is bursting with talent and we are just trying to do our part in creating a fun event to celebrate this while giving the artists opportunity to perform in front of new crowds and network with new people.
Trackage Scheme’s vision has always been to be Malta’s leading platform to showcase local talent in an international spotlight. So when we saw that Craig Rogerson (Canvas Wall) and Nicky Morales were working on a project to export Maltese talent to perform in London, we jumped at the opportunity to get involved and help. We felt that these guys are doing a great thing for Malta and wanted to be a part of it as I knew that with our strong following and numerous services TS could reach out to a wider audience and deliver value.
In fact, we developed a Crowdfunding platform specifically to raise funds for Malta Takes London 2016, set up the event ticketing for both the pre-party, ‘From Funky to London’ as well as the main event in London, managed to secure a number of generous sponsorships and through our marketing efforts, helped create a lot of excitement around this year’s edition. The festival was a total blast and we can’t wait for MTL 2017! A big shout out to all the bands and artists who took part & made this edition another huge success: nosnow/noalps – Federica – Fuzzhoneys – Canvas Wall – Brodu – The Ranch – BILA – I Am Willow – YEWS – NBOME – An Experiment – Beesqueeze – Berne – Rob Harbour – Michael Bugeja – Ben Vincenti
Watch the after-movie here:
Event Tickets & Promotion
2016 is also the year when our Event Tickets & Promotion platform really took off. We’re honoured to have been chosen by most event organisers to sell tickets for events large and small, such as Strummin’, Rock the South festival, Class of 95, Brikkuni, Plato’s Dream Machine, Hairy Amp, The KVB and many more, collectively selling tens of thousands of Euros worth of tickets. Throughout the year, we were also busy creating our very own Event Tickets & Promotion platform promotional video which can be viewed here:
Research & Content Writing
Throughout 2016, we dedicated a lot of our time to research and content writing. Whether it was through articles such as “Women in Popular Music“ or “A Candid Review of Glitch Festival“, we captivated an ever increasing number of online readers. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg; it’s still hard to believe the overwhelming success of our intriguing 3 part story which was spread over 7 months of research; “The Search For The Oldest Record Store in the World”. This article was read over 30,000 times, and counting. Your readership is a testament to the success that Trackage Scheme is fulfilling its mission! We’re very thankful for this and vouch to continue feeding our blog with intriguing content. So stay tuned as there’s more to come at https://trackagescheme.com/blogs/
Our Music School took off
Through our digital marketing efforts, our music school has also taken off. We’re proud to say that we have a significant number of students currently enrolled on different courses. The three most popular courses are piano lessons, drumming and guitar however we have students enrolled on all courses including music production & DJing lessons.
Our final project for 2016: ALT NYE 2016!
And that brings us to our final project of 2016, our very first New Year’s Eve fiesta – ALT NYE.
We’re going toe to toe with Sick of Ants, No Sweat Productions & Hedon Crew to deliver the craziest NYE celebration EVER! With 4 Live bands, 8 DJs & electronic artists spread over 2 areas in one spectacular venue, this promises to be The Biggest NYE Celebration on the Island! A fully stocked bar, including cocktails and street food will be available. In short, we’re ending 2016 with a bang and we hope we can celebrate together!
Watch the official promo video here:
Click on the banner below to buy your tickets:
We cannot thank you enough for your ongoing appreciation and support! May your 2017 be filled with health, happiness, and loads of good music.
See you on the 31st!
Until then, keep on tracking!
Love,
TS <3
