Prof. Jens Michow is considered one of the most renowned experts in the German event and music industry. After working as a concert and tour promoter, founder of one of the first independent labels in Germany, programme director of a cultural centre, artist manager and founder of the concert agency Michow Concerts he settled in Hamburg as a lawyer in 1990 and has been advising clients from all areas of the entertainment and music business ever since.
In 1985, Prof. Michow founded the idkv, which later changed its name to Bundesverband der Veranstaltungswirtschaft (bdv) and in 2019, formed the original core of the Bundesverband der Konzert- und Veranstaltungswirtschaft (Federal Association of the Concert and Event Industry – BDKV), which merged with the VDKD.
From the founding of the association in 1985 continually until 2022, Prof. Michow was the trade association’s executive president. His many accomplishments as a lobbyist for the events industry have had a significant impact on the sector.
As Managing Director of the association, Prof. Michow initiated and monitored the optimization of numerous legal frameworks. He has been a member of the advisory board of the Künstlersozialkasse (Artist’s social insurance) since 1995. In 2020/2021, he worked as an expert for the federal government in reorganizing ‘event manager’ as a training profession, was a member of the tax expert committee of the German Cultural Council, was vice president of the German Music Council from 2003-2004, and – since its founding until June 2022 – was a member of the supervisory board of the Initiative Musik, the funding body of the federal government and the music industry for the German music industry. He is the initiator and executive producer of the gala for the German Live Entertainment Award LEA.
Nowadays, his clients benefit from the lawyer’s profound knowledge of the complex structures of the event industry and its focal points. Since they are talking to a practitioner at eye level, there is no need to describe the industry’s complexities..
For many years, Prof. Michow worked as a law lecturer in the cultural management study programme at the Universities of Music and Theatre in Hamburg and Munich and – together with his law firm partner Dr Ulbricht – is the author of the first academic handbook ‘Veranstaltungsrecht – Das Recht der Kultur- und Unterhaltungsveranstaltungen’ (Event Law – The Law of Cultural and Entertainment Events), which was published by C.H. Beck.