They use a different language in Cannes: bands are "the act", albums are "product", singles are "loss leaders" and countries are "territories".
The peculiar lingua franca of the music industry is spoken with an alarming sense of urgency and purpose at the business feeding frenzy that is "Midem" - the biggest music trade fair in the world.
Midem takes the 10,000 most important people in the billion pound music industry, parachutes them into a pretty Mediterranean town and lets them go at it for seven days of networking, schmoozing, wheeling and dealing.
There's a visceral feel of "mart and market" to the proceedings as the suits, with mobile phone in one hand and various contracts to be signed in the other, slice up the component parts of the industry for the next 12 months. Apart from the record companies, there's the producers, the publishers, the retailers, the importers, the manufacturers, the promoters, the agents, the recording studio people, the CD-Rom heads and the lawyers - and they all want their share and they want it now!
The musicians themselves, the reason why everybody is here, stay locked in their hotel rooms pretending to be aghast at the sight of so much naked commerce in action, but secretly holding out for the top dollar deal.
The myriad functions of Midem in the businessplace can best be described by it's more cumbersome official title: The International Record Music Publishing and Video Music Market. Held annually in the third week of January in Cannes and now in its 31st year, its primary purpose is to provide a professional meeting place for the entire music industry.
As an industry forerunner it also attracts all those professionals seeking to discover the latest trends, fashions and sensibilities of the ever-changing music market place.
The real business though is negotiating rights and contracts in the licensing and distribution wings of the industry as well as promoting artists, albums and back catalogues, not to mention encountering the latest in new technologies as well as meeting with the international media.
You immediately get a sense of the scale of income generated by Midem from the opening night party where a couple of thousand delegates are invited to the massive Palm Beach venue where free champagne and free food flow liberally - and you were wondering why a CD costs £15.99 and why you have to pay £22.50 (plus booking fee) to see a band play in The Point Depot.
Away from the champagne and canapes though, you can sit through interminable conferences on subjects as exhilarating as "Can Collection Societies Survive Beyond The Digital Frontier", "On-Line Retailing: Virtual Store Wars" and "Digital Radio: How Useful Is It For The Music Industry?"
Very much a trade fair of two halves, the musicians ("the creatives") only come out to play at night-time when the business people ("the suits") have concluded their wheeling 'n' dealing - possibly because the musos don't want "to have their heads hassled by money stuff" but more realistically because most everyone doing business in Cannes comes with a finished product in their hands - in the shape of a completed album.
The stated aim is to arrange licensing deals with companies in other countries, thus an album of traditional Irish music from a small Wexford label will, if the deals fall into place, also get released/promoted in Australia/ Belgium/Thailand and so on.
Irish record companies at Midem (which run the gamut from diddley-aiddley to postgrunge rock) have in previous years brought a collection of their releases along to Cannes and made lucrative deals with South African and Middle Eastern outlets - a typical deal of selling on 20,000 albums can be worth up to £50,000 which is one of the reasons why An Bord Trachtala is present at this year's fair and subsidising the presence of a record 24 Irish companies on a specially constructed Irish stand.
Mr Michael Kenna, marketing adviser for the boardachtla, says that while the total value of Irish music exports is around £25 million annually, there is limitless potential for growth.
"The reason we're down here is to oversee and support the music export industry and Midem is the premier music trade event in the world. There is something of a myth about the Irish music industry in that people point to bands like U2 and The Cranberries as prime contributors to the industry, but both those bands are signed to record companies abroad.
"We're more interested in the development of Irish artists on Irish labels, where all the export sales go back into the country. An exception to this is the indigenous success story of Boyzone who were launched by Polygram Ireland. The successful exporting of Irish music is vital because, whether we like it or not, music is one of the key ways we are represented abroad," he says.
Music also provides large amounts of invisible earnings and Mr Kenna points out that musical culture works as a tourist magnet: "Studies carried out by Bord Failte and the National Economic and Social Council show that up to 80 per cent of tourists who visit Ireland cite our music as one of the main reasons why they come here - whether that be people coming over to see where U2 record their albums in Dublin or people who are attracted by the live traditional music in pubs all over the country."
He adds: "While we do subsidise the Irish stand, we would like to see other companies, like RTE and Telecom get in on the act."
This year, visitors to the Irish stand could pick up a free compilation CD of different styles of Irish music which may not seem very dynamic until you realise that it has a potential reach to the 10,000 most influential people in the music business.
There was also an Irish showcase night featuring live performances from Leslie Dowdall and Aslan.
With the less famous and more representative Irish acts now reporting that more than 60 per cent of their album sales are overseas, the export market is the way to go for this generation of Irish bands. And Midem is the way to get there.
