Music Hack Day coming up on July 20-21

Timed to coincide with the Underground Music Showcase (UMS), Music Hack Day Denver is slated to take place at Galvanize on July 20-21. 

 

"I wanted to see if there was a way to bring the music community and the tech community in the Denver-Boulder area for one galvanizing event," says Antony Bruno, one of the event's organizers. "It was not a hard sell."

 

Companies including Beatport, Spotify, SoundCloud, Bitcount and The Echo Nest are sponsoring the event.

 

Participants will use APIs from these and other music-tech companies to hack together musical apps and widgets of every sonic description. 

 

It will run from 9 a.m. on Sat. July 20 to midday Sun. July 21. "After lunch, the hacking begins and in 24 hours it's time for demos," says Bruno, who says he's expecting as many as 150 attendees. Participants get tickets to the UMS on Friday night with Mudhoney headlining.

 

Also held in Barcelona, Philadelphia, Paris, San Francisco, Vienna, Cannes and Stockholm in 2013, Music Hack Days serve several purposes.

 

"Beatport is interested in knowing who's around," says Bruno. "These Hack Days are a way for sponsors to promote their technologies."
 

It's also a good recruitment tool for sponsors. "Beatport hired a guy after a Hack Day in San Francisco," says Bruno.

 

Formerly the digital technology editor for Billboard, Bruno has done contract content projects for companies such as Beatport and Topspin since leaving Billboard in 2011.  He's lived in Denver since 2006.