Foundations Forum

Foundations Forum was the first exclusively heavy metal music industry convention, held annually from 1988−1997 in Los Angeles. The convention was set up by Concrete Marketing who had in January 1988 created the first industry trade magazine for the heavy metal world - Foundations. Realizing there was little or no attention or focus on this growing market, and having seen the far reaching distribution of the trade magazine, they decided to put together an annual meeting, bringing together key industry personnel, vendors and artists (and in later forums fans as well) offering advice on surviving the industry, discussing the changing climate of the scene and business, and allowing people to network.

Executive Director Bob Chiappardi summed up the purpose of the Forum,

"The way heavy metal is growing, we want to be careful not to have it blow out. By sitting down and talking about the genre, the good and the bad points, having the indies interacting with the majors, it makes for a healthy industry in general."

The forums usually invited a keynote speaker who would open the event and touch on important themes for the weekend ahead. There would be panels and workshops made up of industry personnel particular to the theme who would discuss contemporary issues and answer questions.

There were also plenty of performances all weekend of the best signed and unsigned talent the heavy metal world had to offer, over the years including bands like Judas Priest, Pantera, Alice in Chains, Extreme, Ozzy Osbourne and Prong.

CD Samplers of signed and unsigned artists were distributed to each forum attendee

On September 30 - October 1 at the Sheraton Universal Hotel in Los Angeles, Concrete Marketing, Metal Blade Records and RIP Magazine joined forces to create the first annual Foundations Forum convention.

The theme of FF88 was the credibility and respectability of metal within the music industry as a whole. Attendance, etc.

The Keynote speaker for the event was Sharon Osbourne and it incorporated parties in honor of RIP Magazine's second anniversary and Concrete's fourth.

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