This past weekend was the first ever Independent Music Industry Conference, which took place in Los Angeles for the inaugural year. The conference provided a place where young people who want to work in music (like myself) could learn about different aspects and careers of people in the music industry. The conference was the brainchild of Mike Ziemer, owner of Third String Records/Productions and the creator of So What Music Fest.

This was my first official conference so I wasn't exactly sure what to expect, but I ended up meeting a lot of awesome people and learning way more than I thought I would. The panel part of the conference began on Thursday. The first panel was all about PR and had magazine owners, the CEO of a publicity company and a publicist all speaking. As someone who is writing more and more concert reviews and interviews with bands I really enjoyed this panel a lot. I learned a lot from the people speaking and also from speaking to them afterwards. The second panel was a festival panel which featured people who worked on Warped Tour as well as Mike Ziemer and management people.

The last panel of the day was all about record labels, this was another one that I enjoyed. They talked about the inner workings of labels, different positions in a label and how to get your band signed. After this panel, I had the opportunity to talk to the executive vice president of Hopeless Records, Eric Tobin. That was one of the coolest things of the whole conference.

Friday had 5 panels and this was the day for more of the music side of everything rather than the business side. First panel of the day was all about touring, this had touring photographers, band managers and the owner of a merch company called Printed Threads speaking. The second panel was agents vs. promoters, this had booking agents from big booking companies and promoters of festivals and shows. This panel was my favorite one from the second day because I think booking bands would be a cool career. Third panel was music and technology which now really go hand in hand and will continue to in the future.

The fourth panel was just a general music industry panel consisting of booking agents, a guy from SESAC, and a band manager. The very last panel of the day was all about producing. It had producers ranging in all different levels of experience. There was a lady who was specifically a mastering person, a guy who manages producers and even an indie artist.

The conference ended with a talk from Curran Blevins who is the manager of this rad band called Our Last Night. Once the conference was over I talked to Mike Ziemer about music festival stuff and then Hunter Garret, the head of marketing for So What Music Fest about marketing techniques.

Overall, I’m really happy I decided to go to this conference, I learned so much stuff about music and working in the music industry and met some awesome people. I can’t wait until the next music conference.