Get ready, get excited…. The winner of this category is:

CONCERT LIVE!!!!

In vino veritas. A drunken disagreement between two school friends – Adam Goodyer and James Perkins – about the last track played at a Massive Attack concert at the Brixton Academy led to the idea that all music fans should be able to walk out of a concert with a high quality recording of what they have just heard.

That was in the summer of 2004. Fast forward to September 2005. Concert Live produces and sells its first run of “instant” live CDs at a Gang of Four conert at the Barbican. The result: 350 CDs sold on the night and another 700 subsequently online.

In 2006, Concert Live make their next breakthrough. They design and implement a secure system for tracking and auditing sales of their CDs, meaning that the sales are eligible for inclusion in the UK charts. What does that mean? For some artists, Concert Live is now responsible for more single sales than HMV or iTunes.

“We’ve made our product fit in with the way artists manage their usual revenue streams,” says Goodyer. In other words, these guys are true innovators – and proof that small, independent businesses can really make a difference.

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