Abstract
Showcase festivals are industry events comprising artist showcases and conferences. It may be argued that showcase festivals are an understudied offline field, since their role in configuring and maintaining a festival-like arena and providing a meeting place for the music industries remains largely unexplored from a scholarly point of view, as well as underappreciated and underestimated within the mainstream academic community. Their purpose is to present artists hoping to attract the attention of the core audience: industry professionals looking for new talent to sign and represent. The article provides an empirical study of the Nordic showcase festival by:Larm using theories of gatekeeping, fields and capital.