IMX Tokyo 2026: Taking Music Across Borders

How does a song find an audience beyond its home market—and what needs to travel with it?

At GLADE PARK Shibuya, IMX Tokyo 2026 brought music professionals together around the closely connected questions of discovery, rights and regional reach. Following the Shanghai edition on 29–31 October, the Tokyo conference on 4 November carried the annual FUSION theme into a programme focused on Japan’s connections with the wider music business.

Across the published programme, nine keynotes, panels and conversations approached that connection from different directions. The work of reaching listeners sat alongside the information, relationships and creative choices behind a release. Opening remarks were listed from Tomishi Kato, Executive Director of DAFLOW Japan.

The keynote listed for Tinko Georgiev, Founding Growth Architect at CRxAI, centred on a practical question: as AI becomes part of music creation and training, how can contributions be recorded and revenue distributed fairly? Its framing connected technological change with the records needed to recognise the people behind a work. That placed rights and remuneration alongside discovery as foundations for music’s international development, with CRxAI’s proposed global rights and revenue infrastructure as the programme’s starting point.

Regional promotion took a concrete form in the session featuring Tomishi Kato of DAFLOW Japan, Yoshihisa Ozawa and Kota Uemura of KKCompany Japan (KKBOX). The programme drew on music advertising on NetEase Cloud Music and QQ Music, alongside an advertising proof of concept with KKBOX in the Taiwan region. Those examples connected Japanese music’s overseas ambitions with the platforms listeners already use, giving this part of the agenda a focus on routes into two distinct markets.

Chartmetric’s Jay Kogami, AudioShake’s Jessica Powell and Nadascore’s Muara Sipahutar formed the listed panel for a session on technology in everyday music work. Audience and artist analysis, stem separation and new uses for catalogues were its central examples. The programme also asked what it takes to adopt these tools inside a business. Its scope linked the possibilities of technology with the practical work of understanding listeners, working with recordings and making tools useful within existing workflows.

Looking at Japanese music from outside Japan, this panel’s line-up brought together Sebastian Mair of GoDigital Music, Shiyuan Gu of NetEase Cloud Music and Rick Haayen of Music at Work. The programme focused on practical routes into international markets from the perspective of overseas platforms and distributors. That perspective connected a release’s ambitions at home with the organisations through which it can reach listeners elsewhere, giving regional collaboration a place in the mechanics of taking music abroad.

Careers, visibility and decision-making power were the focus of a panel spanning technology, distribution, artist management and production. The programme named Haruna Nakayama of Crypton Future Media, Shiomi Meguriya of SPACE SHOWER FUGA, Ayaka Yoshizawa of TWIN PLANET, and producer and choreographer SHINKO. Their listed perspectives made room for a question running alongside the agenda’s commercial and technological concerns: who has the opportunity to shape the industry, and how do people build careers within it?

Ryota Murooka of Room Hill, Hide Kawada of United Future Creators and Michiteru Kondo of Zipevent, LINK STATION (THAILAND) and LINK HOLDINGS were listed for a panel connecting domestic promotion with expansion across Asia. Its scope extended from digital strategy in Japan to the work of local partners overseas: PR, marketing, booking, events, concert production and fan clubs. Together, those subjects framed audience development as both a digital task and a matter of sustained activity within a market.

The publishing panel’s programme paired Satoshi Arai of SURF Music, Asaki Yokoyama of Nippon Television Music and Hidehiko Mizutani of JASRAC. Its three perspectives covered taking songwriters overseas and organising metadata, working with international publishers, and documenting a work’s existence through KENDRIX. This connected the creative opportunity of an international release with the information and publishing relationships behind it. The focus was on the practical foundations that help a song travel while maintaining a record of the work.

The distribution panel’s line-up spanned Sohail Hasan of Xelon Digital, Tomofumi Tani of NexTone, Samon Takagi of SPACE SHOWER FUGA and Giancarlo Sernagiotto of Kanjian Music. The programme paired two questions: how Japanese music reaches listeners worldwide, and how distribution business practices differ between Japan and overseas markets. Placing those questions together connected international release ambitions with the working relationships needed to support them, giving distribution a place alongside promotion and publishing in the wider programme.

Artist expression, identity and lived experience were the starting points for the closing conversation. The programme listed Satria Ramadhan of SRM Bookings & Services and AXEAN Festival, Darin Epsilon of Perspectives Digital, Aigul Moldabayeva of Qazaq Indie, and singer-songwriter Sarina, Artist Co-founder of Syrensong. Its focus was how the story behind a song reaches listeners across borders. This brought the creative work itself into the same picture as the platforms, rights and partnerships supporting an international release.

Alongside the conference sessions, Music Lunch: New Release Project provided a programme slot for new music videos and connections around fresh releases. A networking reception was also part of the agenda, while photographs from the gathering show attendees meeting beyond the stage.

Taken together, the Tokyo programme gave FUSION a practical focus. Music’s journey across borders involves rights records and publishing, market knowledge and distribution, technology and careers, as well as the artist’s own story. Bringing those perspectives into one gathering carried the exchange from Shanghai forward and made space for connections across the music business.

Explore the IMX Tokyo programme.