As the SXSW festival made its London debut this week, a group of top music industry leaders convened for an intimate dinner hosted by Luminate — the data and insights company that powers the Billboard charts — and Music Business Worldwide.

The mix of music company CEOs and entrepreneurs — many of whom had just been named to Billboard‘s 2025 UK Power Players list — mingled over drinks at the Little House Mayfair social club before sitting down to a seated dinner in cozy booths, discussing new ventures, challenges and opportunities ahead.

The evening was hosted by Luminate’s CEO Rob Jonas and Music Business Worldwide‘s founder and publisher Tim Ingham. Billboard, Luminate and MBW share the same parent company, PMC. 

“It was a room you had to be in,” said Jonas. “With growth and disruption happening in equal measure in the music industry right now, discussions and collaboration is more important than ever.”

The Music Leaders Dinner included a number of guests who attended Billboard’s first-ever Global Power Players event the night prior honoring the most influential music executives outside the U.S. At that party, Elton John and his husband and manager David Furnish blasted U.K. lawmakers in a rollicking speech as they received the Creators’ Champion Award for their fierce advocacy for artist rights, as the British government considers amendments to copyright law that could threaten the income of music creators and companies while tech firms train their AI algorithms on copyrighted works without permission.

Ingham, who launched his site dedicated to global music industry news, analysis and jobs in 2015, declared the Music Leaders Dinner “a great night with unanimously great people. And a room full of laughter! Looking forward to the next one.”