F.A.Q. - WOMEX

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Basics: WOMEX and virtualWOMEX

Registering

Participating in virtualWOMEX

Your virtualWOMEX account

Other questions
- To whom can I turn when I have a technical problem or questions?

Basics: WOMEX and virtualWOMEX

What is WOMEX?

"The most important international professional market of world music of every kind. This international fair brings together professionals from the worlds of folk, roots, ethnic and traditional music and also includes concerts, conferences and documentary films. It contributes to networking as an effective means of promoting music and culture of all kinds across frontiers." - UNESCO Global Alliance for Cultural Diversity

What is virtualWOMEX?

virtualWOMEX is your online gateway to the global music community!

Present yourself, your colleagues and your company to the professional WOMEX network - the standard for everybody in the world music business.
Trade online. Publish your services, products, requests to the virtualWOMEX community - be visible and active.
Do it yourself. Post news, upload songs, manage your data in real time via an easy-to-use interface. No technical knowledge necessary.

What is the relationship between WOMEX and virtualWOMEX?

virtualWOMEX is a service of WOMEX. It is developed, moderated and maintained by the media and IT departments of Piranha Arts AG.
This is the main reason why companies who attend the yearly WOMEX get a free full access to virtualWOMEX for a year - which implies that the contact information they leave on virtualWOMEX are also published in the WOMEX Guide (see this for more details).
Apart from that, the link between WOMEX and virtualWOMEX has no consequence whatsoever for the users of virtualWOMEX. You don't have to register to WOMEX to take part in virtualWOMEX (and vice versa). But virtualWOMEX can be very useful for companies attending WOMEX to further network with the partners they meet at the trade fair. Similarly, companies registered only for virtualWOMEX can develop relationships with others before a possible meeting at the annual WOMEX.

Registering

How can I register to WOMEX 18?

Registration for WOMEX 18 is now open. See the WOMEX website for information.

Who can register to virtualWOMEX?

Everybody who has a deeper interest in world music or works in the world music business can and should participate in virtualWOMEX. We don't investigate every application but we reserve ourselves the right to reject a registration if we feel that it doesn't fit with our community.

How can I register to virtualWOMEX?

All registered delegates of WOMEX 18 will get a virtualWOMEX account for one free year. A virtualWOMEX account including a profile will be set up automatically or it will be updated if it was created before - we will send your account data to your email address.

I am not registered for WOMEX 18 but I would like to participate in virtualWOMEX. Is that possible?

Yes. virtualWOMEX is open to everybody who has a deeper interest in world music. On payment of a fee (48 Euro for the first person from a company and 24 Euro for his/her colleagues per year) all interested parties can register for virtualWOMEX or extend their existing account without participating in the WOMEX itself. Please do this through our virtualWOMEX registration form.
When the validity of your account runs out, you will receive an e-mail warning you that it is about to expire and invite you to register again.

Participating in virtualWOMEX

What can I do in virtualWOMEX?

With your account you can build and update your own profile:

You can present yourself and your company in a profile (see for example: Piranha Kultur GmbH)
Modify your main data (address, phone, activities ...)
Publish or modify Artists
Publish or modify Events
Publish or modify Free Ads
Publish or modify News
Publish or modify a Tour
Publish or modify Records
Get in contact with all virtualWOMEX members
Find, network and meet with WOMEX 18 delegates

How can I publish, edit or delete data on virtualWOMEX?

You have to login with your username and password first. To publish your services, products, news, etc., go to 'MyWOMEX' and click on 'News > Publish News', for example. You can edit or delete an entry if you click on the listed items in 'MyWOMEX' and click on the 'edit' or 'delete' icon in the top bar. Please follow the instructions after this action. Alternatively you can use the action-icons (edit, publish, delete) in each category ('News', ...) or on the virtualWOMEX homepage after your login.

What should I publish first?

We advise you to publish your artist(s) first. You can also post a record, an event and/or a tour related to your artist. During the publishing process you can choose your artist using the pull down menu. Finally your artist will be displayed on his own page with all his related information such as: record, events, tour.

What content of virtualWOMEX is public?

Basically, content posted by the users of virtualWOMEX is for all to see. This includes media like music samples. However, some information remain accessible only to the registered users. They are:

business contacts of companies and delegates (as opposed to 'open contacts')
in 'Tour Planner', the dates of the relative tours

When will my updates or new entries be online?

Your updates or new entries will appear online and be searchable immediately. Editing some details about companies or persons may require a confirmation by a virtualWOMEX administrator before going online. Please allow us some time to confirm your request. Therefore, please do not write your company name in capital letters or add any unnecessary symbols to it. Such changes will be refused.

Can I edit my (company's) profile at any time?

If you do/did NOT register for WOMEX, but only for virtualWOMEX: yes, you can edit your profiles at any time.

If you register for the yearly WOMEX, please note that the information about your company and yourself will be printed in the yearly WOMEX Guide. Please note that:

all changes to your profiles made until the date of the "Guide Rate" will be printed in the yearly WOMEX Guide;
all changes to your profiles made after the date of the "Guide Rate" will appear online only.

The exact date of the "Guide Rate" varies from year to year but usually, it is at the beginning of September. Please check out the WOMEX website for details.

Also, please note that NAME CHANGES of registered delegates are subject to a fee of 40 EUR and have to be handled by the registration department.

How do I upload a song onto virtualWOMEX?

Songs are either linked to an artist, a record, an event or a tour.
Once logged in onto virtualWOMEX, go to the appropriate category using the main menu on the left (Artists, Records, Event or Tour Planner). Then, click on the "Publish new artist / records / event / tour" link that you find on the top right of the page.
First, enter some basic information. A few steps further (step 6 for an artist or a record, step 7 for an event or a tour), you have the ability to upload media like mp3 files. Please note that every audio data have to be encoded in mp3 format and cannot exceed 20 Mb in size in order to be featured in our audio player. Videos can be maximum 2 Gb in size, MPEG4 format is recommended.

How do I remove a song from virtualWOMEX?

Once logged in onto virtualWOMEX, find the respective page where the song is featured. Then, click on the "Edit this artist / record / event / tour" link that you find on the top right of the page.
Click through the editing process until you reach the page where you find the "upload songs for this artist / record / event / tour". This will lead you to a page where you can upload more songs or remove the ones that are already online.

Is there an official language in the virtualWOMEX?

Yes. To keep communication between all participants practical, time effective and low budget, we adopted ENGLISH as the preferred virtualWOMEX language.

How can I update our company logo?

What can I do to look good in virtualWOMEX?

Here are some simple rules to follow so that your profile and the one of your company shine on virtualWOMEX (and also, for a lot of you, in the WOMEX Guide!):

Rule #1: do not write names in BIG CAPS. Just like every other place on the internet, we moderators do not like them and will systematically scale them down if we see them.
Rule #2: following international standards, phone / fax / mobile numbers should look like this: +country code and then: number.
For example: WOMEX's switchboard number reads like this:
+49 30 318 614 30
(This format is known as the International Telecommunications Union Recommendation E.123).
By the way, please insert only one number per field (phone / fax / mobile). If you wish to indicate more than that, make use of the "description" field in the relative profile(s).
Rule #3: if you upload pictures - which we encourage you to do! - make sure they are saved using the RGB color model. Otherwise, they won't appear correctly in all browsers. Typically, if your graphics were primarily used for print, there is a good chance that they are in CMYK format!

Where do I get more detailed help?

Please use our context sensitive help (tooltips) which will guide you through the publishing and editing process. The context sensitive help has a question mark placed in a circle icon. You move your mouse cursor over the icon and the help will be displayed. Javascript must be activated in your browser. If you don't want to activate javascript for your browser you can click on the icon and the help will be shown in a new browser window.

Your virtualWOMEX account

I forgot my password. How can I get it back?

Click on the "Forgotten password?" link below the login area (on the bottom left of the main page) and follow the instructions.

I can't log in to virtualWOMEX with my password.

Both your username and your password are case sensitive. Try entering them again and pay particular attention to the big and small letters.
Also, make sure that there are no empty spaces (sometimes, when you copy/paste a password, an empty space is added before or after it). If it still does not work, please check if there are any security settings that might hinder you to log in (browser? firewall?). If you are not sure about that, you may want to contact your system administrator.
At last: contact us. Please try letting us know which browser (firefox, safari, explorer, ...) you are using and what its version is.

Can I change my password?

Once logged in, you can change your password and/or username into something you would remember more easily. To do so, go to: 'MyWOMEX' > edit my login data

Can I delete my account?

Users cannot delete accounts. Please get in touch with us and we will do it for you.

Someone left my company but her/his account remains. Can I delete it?

No, users cannot delete accounts. Please get in touch with us and we will do it for you.
Alternatively, you could attribute his/her account to someone else, as long as this person works at your company. The period of validity of the account does not change. Please contact us.

I received the login data of someone else!

It is probable that some or all accounts related to your company were registered using your e-mail address. Please contact us.

I have registered for WOMEX, but I have not received my virtualWOMEX login details yet.

Note that your virtualWOMEX data are created and sent to you after we have received the full payment for your registration to WOMEX. If you feel this is the case, please contact us.

My account is no longer valid. Is this the end?

No, it is not. The information you posted about yourself and your company will remain in virtualWOMEX unless you ask us to remove it. You can still log in and change basic infos like your contact data, but lost the ability to post further features like records, artists, etc. In order to do this, you need to register again.