About Puls
Puls is The Nordic Culture Fund's five-year music initiative 2017-2022 aiming to strengthen the Nordic live music scene.
Puls has worked as a springboard for the creation of a Nordic music network which seeks to bring musical experiences of high artistic quality to a wider Nordic public. It has therefore been designed as:
- a funding programme targeted towards concert promoters
- a network for Puls promoters in the Nordic countries
- a work within cultural policy that collaborates with the national funding organization in all the Nordic countries
In 2017-2022 Puls has allocated approximately DKK 21 million to venues and festivals throughout the Nordic region. The funding is for promoters as curators, as points of contact between artists and new audiences.
The Puls budget for 2019-2020 was made up of contributions from the Nordic Culture Fund, the Nordic Council of Ministers for Culture, the Danish Arts Foundation, the Finnish Music Foundation (MES) and the Ministry of Education and Culture in Finland.
INITIATIVES IN PULS
Support for concert promoters
Puls has been a standalone five-year funding programme. Puls has provided funding to enable promoters to stage promising artists based in the Nordic Region, and to communicate with audiences in a focused manner.
Network
The Nordic Culture Fund has also worked with relevant stakeholders to facilitate improvements to venues and set up networks to debate issues related to live music in the Nordic Region, devise joint solutions and arrange events at which audiences encounter Nordic music. This has included network meetings with the selected Nordic promoters.
THOUGHTS BEHIND PULS
The Puls initiative is based on several assessments and discussions on the current challenges and potential in developing the Nordic live music scene. The Nordic market has great but untapped potential for recorded music, live music and jobs. Together, the Nordic countries are one of the largest economies in the world, and there are several similarities between them, in terms of the arts, social structures and cultural consumption.
In an era of digital streaming, live gigs are increasingly essential to a thriving music scene. Live music is a world of unique experiences. This is where the market is really changing, which makes it paradoxical that many Nordic artists rarely perform in other countries in the Region. People have only limited knowledge of music in the neighbouring countries, and artists need an international hit to make a breakthrough that resonates throughout the Region.
The Puls programme has been designed with the purpose of changing that in mind.
