First time flying with Southwest.com!

So let’s talk about this super sweet cherry, shall we? IMFCON, you’re probably saying to yourself, what is that? How is that even pronounced? I.M.F.CON stands for the International Music Festival Conference, an annual event that looks into the past, present, and future of music festivals. In its 6th year, the conference is held for music festival professionals and other industry executives to network, learn from one another, establish partnerships, and understand the latest trends in the festival and music industry. It’s basically a fest head’s dream smashed up with a professional’s reality. Any thing or anyone you can imagine that’s involved with making a festival experience what it is, from Talent Buyers, Sculptural Artists, Corporate Sponsors, Non-Profit Organizations, Tour Managers, Festival Attendees, Wrist Band Designers, Tech Geeks, Media Bloggers, Pedicab Bicyclists, you name it, they are there, and their ideas are being shared amongst each other. If you think festivals are heaven, IMFCON is the almighty ruler of that heaven. I really don’t know how to properly explain how incredibly ecstatic I was to be there! These are the people who make my life better, these are the people responsible for throwing some of the most epic parties on earth, these are the master minds behind it all, and I am now one of them (well kinda)! Meeting with them, sharing my ideas, and listening to theirs was incredibly rewarding, positive and encouraging.  So let me tell you about my Austin experience, what went down, and why I am for sure going back!

Hand painted art in the lobby of The Fire House Hostel!

IMFCON is three days, Sunday to Tuesday. I have never been to Austin before or Texas for that matter, all I know is that everything is big there and Austin is weird. Weird, big things, and a conference about music festivals? Sweet!! Let’s go then! I just knew I had to be a part of this and booked my flight and conference badge probably a month before the event. This super last-minute decision (most of my trips are) was one of the best ideas I’ve had. While the conference blocked out special price rooms at the Hyatt Regency Austin (where the conference was being held), or you could use AirBnB, I took a more budget friendly approach (for myself) and booked the Fire House Hostel, in the convenient location of the entertainment district. The hostel is located in the city’s oldest standing fire house building and has a speakeasy bar behind a hidden book shelf!

Reception with a speak-easy bar hidden behind books.

Hostel bars are great because they are a way for you to meet people, they usually run pub crawls or other activities, and most importantly they offer you a fairly cheap price range of drinks. This bar had a nice charm to it, with live music at night, after all it is Austin, the live music capitol of the world! This particular hostel also offered free breakfast and free WiFi.  All lined up and down the 3 floors of stairs, they offered descriptions with pictures of various places to check out around the city of Austin, and how to get to those locations from the hostel. The price per night was a little bit more than I’ve paid in other cities ($37 a night) but the location was super convenient. The hostel also provided a free first ride with Lyft (a car service similar to Uber), which I gladly used, even though I could have walked to the conference within 20 minutes. My only negative review was the WiFi had a weak signal, which made it really hard to connect on the 3rd floor where I was staying.

Common area at the Fire House Hostel.

SAVE $$$ TIP!!! Did you know that you can take a bus from most city airports to center city for $1.50 to $3.00 USD? Public transportation in most major US cities runs every 15-30 minutes, and yes there is room for your luggage! I always take this option if I have the time, it beats a $30-50 taxi!

Now let’s get to the good stuff…

What made IMFCON a great conference and learning experience?

KEYNOTE SPEAKER

Laurie Kirby, CEO IMFCON/IFFS (2014) talks about Keynote Speaker and 3 Day Agenda.

“The Magic of Music Festivals — What It Means to This Generation”

Most conferences have a keynote speaker, someone who establishes the framework for the events agenda. I’m pretty sure everyone was pleased with the speech we were given by living legend, Chip Conley. I am literally beaming with joy right now thinking back on this! This guy, is so fucking awesome! If you don’t know Chip, let me tell you about his list of qualifications in the magical festival world in which we live. First and foremost he is the founder of Fest300, one of my favorite festival and cultural blogs out there. He also is an author, public speaker, the Head of Global Hospitality at AirBnB, Board Member of the Burning Man Project, and the founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, the second largest operator for boutique hotels and spas in the United States. This guy is incredible, truly an inspiration! Listening to him talk about something he loves, which is something I love, and something everyone at this conference loves, was really special. He reflected on how festivals give a communal joy for people, making you become a part of something so much bigger than you, and that’s why we love them so much, for the experiences and connections they give us. He also talked about Spain’s Baby Jumping Festival. Um, what? Yes, this is a real thing and can be found here on Fest300. The site focuses on finding the best festivals on earth each year and has about 270 of the worlds best festivals on it. The festivals are unranked and chosen from the founders of the site, who have a lot of cultural and musical background experience around the world (trust me, these guys know what’s up!) During his speech he announced that the final 30 festivals to be added to their list would be determined by letting the public community of fans decide and vote from 120 festivals they had chosen. Now, the above is a super brief summery of his speech, but if you’re truly interested in what he had to say, I found a great blog post by Cultivora‘s editorial director Laura, that really summarizes Chip’s four facts about music festivals, that he touched upon in his opening keynote speech. You really should read it! It’s a great article, and a hell of a lot better than something I could come up with here. By the way, a lot of these principles are why I love to travel and go to festivals!

NETWORKING

Meeting of the Minds!

OK, this is a massive part of any conference. Networking!! Let’s meet people and connect! First day, I walk into the big conference room and look on the projector where different groups were sitting depending on their nature of business in the industry. Festival Director’s Tables 1-7, Tour Managers Table 11, Talent Buyers at Table 15, you get the picture. Where do I fit in? I signed up as a student last-minute. Look over at the “student” table, no one, in fact, I don’t think it even existed. OK, not trying to talk to myself, where do I go? I hadn’t written a lot for my blog yet, but I edit videos and take a lot of photos of events. Media? OK, yeah that sounds good, I’ll go to Table 18 for Media. I sit down and I immediately recognize almost everyone at this table. I am a massive fan of them all, a fan of the work they do, holy shit, this is so cool!! Everyone starts to go around the table and introduces themselves: Tucker Gumber aka The Festival Guy and CEO of FestEvo, Cameron Bowman aka The Festival Lawyer, Art Gimbel, Co-Founder of Fest300, Vito Valentinetti, Founder and Editor-In-Chief aka “The Chief Junkie” at MusicFestivalJunkies.com, Jordan Keeling, Partner and Executive Director of Publicity and Public Relations at YourEDM.com (he also is co-founder of Northern Nights Music Festival). Ok, so yeah, I am basically at a table full of people who are massive inspirations to me! Yup, I’ve basically been stalking them and loving them forever and they don’t even know it. The circle comes around and here I am. So I tell them how slightly obsessed I am with all of them and say how I have just started this blog, and I edit videos of my festival experiences, I like to make festival gear (like my feather mohawks), I’m a tour guide for an extreme events and music festivals tour company (Awake Tours), and how I really, really want to find a career in this industry because I love it so damn much, that’s why I’m there. I tell them, I am just getting started but ultimately all I really do is, go to music festivals because I love them, and while I’m at them, I network with a giant inflatable t-rex dinosaur I carry around named Roland. I kid you not, I think they all took their phones out and started following, no, not me, but my dinosaur’s instagram, facebook, and twitter immediately! Jokes aside, they really loved that (networking) idea, and made me feel so welcome in their media circle. We talked about future festival plans, goals and projects, but mostly we focused on where we could all go and drink later on. They basically were my crew for the rest of the trip and part of the reason why this trip was really so wonderful. Go follow them and their websites and see the awesomeness for yourself!

Follow me on instagram @jess_aka_poots

Now, one of the best things about this conference is the ability to network with people not only in your concentrated area of interest, but also those in different fields, just as if you are at a festival, you’re always meeting new people! Business cards, business cards galore! Not only that, but some really awesome conversations and friendships are established at this conference because people are truly passionate about their brand or learning about yours. If you think about it, these are all festival people (the most fun, creative, awesome people on earth), lots are willing to talk with you, help you, and you might even find yourself networking with someone you typically wouldn’t be talking to. That was what was great about the drill down sessions and cocktail hours (besides the drinks of course). Sipping on some wine, I met Kim Owens, Editor, Photographer, Digital Marketer and Founder of Kaffeine Buzz. For years she has been conducting research throughout the UK and USA on the role technology has at music festivals, and then brings her research to panels at conferences like IMFCON and SXSW. Check out this blog post to learn more about her, technology, and an interview she did with me about connecting and using technology at music festivals.

Also roaming around, I got to meet Tom Dougher, Director of Charter and Sales Marketing for Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL). I bet you can guess what we talked about… The Groove Cruise, duh!! It was great to talk with him about how festivals on cruise ships bring a whole new experience, for not only the attendee’s but his staff and company as well! Speaking of The Groove Cruise, I bumped into fellow Groove Cruiser, Matt Lois. He’s the Sales Manager for Delmay and Partners. He has booked artists such as Carl Cox and Deadmau5, hotel and travel accommodations while they are traveling for an event. He can also help you book discounted hotel rates at festivals, conferences, and conventions like the Winter Music Conference, Ultra Music Festival, and more! And you know, since I clearly don’t know how to write a blog post without mentioning The Groove Cruise (seriously, it’s life changing), I guess I should mention that the mastermind behind it all, the number one captain of this event, Jason Beukema, owner of Whet Travel, a travel company specializing in fully chartered festivals on cruise ships, was there along with Talent Buyer, Ryan Fitzpatrick, who I’m pretty sure didn’t recognize me in normal clothes. (Normal clothes don’t really exist on the Groove Cruise. The festival is driven by elaborate, hand crafted, costume apparel with little to no clothes, yes seriously!) It was nice seeing their faces there, especially Jason who taught me some tricks about Public Relations and also spoke on one of the very amazing panels this conference has to offer!

Jason B, owner Whet Travel, creator of my favorite festival, The Groove Cruise!

I could go on forever about the people I met here but just to give you an idea of the diversity this conference has to offer, check out the next two sections below, to see what other amazing brands and people I met!

PANELS

Panel: “Using Social Media To Boost Sponsorships”

Yes, so much yes, and more yes!! This is what we all go for. To hear ideas, to discuss issues and trends, to teach and be educated about all things music festivals! There were some really, really great panels lined up! Some discussions would go over the allotted times, they were so good! After the panels you could talk to the speakers and ask personal questions if you didn’t want to ask during the Q & A session. Here are some of my favorite panel discussions that cover some major things that all festivals should be aware about or truly make a festival experience a good one:

VENUE: “This Land Is Your Land: Venues and All That Jazz”

Moderator: Theresa Jenkins/ Sr. Executive Director The Recording Academy

Panelists: DeDe Flemming/ Co-owner The Do Lab, James Cornett/ President CEO Spirit of the  Suwannee Music Park, Deborah Gill/ Owner DAG Presents and The Marchesa Hall and Theatre,  Randall Kline/ Founder Executive Artistic Director SFJAZZ, Jason Beukema/ Owner Whet Travel

This panel was diverse with people who face different challenges with owning/renting venues, changing their festivals venues, or have unusual/destination venues for their event. Panelists shared ideas on how venues work and don’t work, whether you’re starting a new festival, have a reoccurring one, or how it can affect attendees as well. Not sure about you, but venues for festivals are a massive decision-making factor when I am choosing to go to an event. They provide the mood and setting each festival has, and you want to be somewhere you feel comfortable, have nice scenery, and the flow of festival crowds works within the space. Whatever it might be, venue environment is very important!

Topics and discussions included:

– Flexibility of a venue, the parking, camping, and cap of people.

– Flight pricing or destination costs of a venue for organizers, staff, artists, and attendees.

– Not a perfect venue for your event? Problem solver: Create a new one! Start a blank canvas (get a new location).

– How repeat locations bring something to your community and people back to your event!

– How your event can make changes for your area and venue. Example: Become recycling partners with different counties to limit waste.

– How to bring in revenue for your city and state.

Did you know? It costs 1 million dollars to fully charter a cruise ship!?

ART: “Visual Arts: How Art Installations Give Festivals Personality, Identity, and Longevity”

Moderator: Philip Blaine/ Robot Picnic Owner and Art Curator

Panelists: Michael Christian/ Fine Artist specializing in Large Interactive Sculptors, Christopher Janney/ Artistic Director Phenomen Arts Inc., Todd Roberts, The Windish Agency, LLC.

Being that I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and have been making art since I was a toddler, this panel was absolutely amazing, super educational and interesting! The panel was created and run by Philip Blaine, a program chair of IMFCON, he has been a festival and concert producer for over 25 years. He has worked for Coachella, GoldenVoice, Insomniac, and is the co-creator of EDMbiz and Electric Forest. Click here to see his full bio, but in summary I’ll just go ahead and tell you that this man is such a brilliant, creative, badass! Art at a festival is a big, major must! You could have a solid line-up, but if you don’t have something else to give your festival goers an experience or things to interact with, your festival will most likely fail, and you’ll lose money. This panel covered the issues artists and festivals deal with commissioning art, as well as how art makes a festival brand. I really want to thank Phillip for putting this panel together along with the amazing artists on the panel, all of whom I’ve seen or interacted with their art at some point and didn’t even know it. Discussing the positives and negatives of this particular part of a festival, was extremely educational and was my favorite panel, so thank you!

Topics and discussions included:

– Drawing and engineering large scaled art. Can it actually work?

– Creative problem solving and designing art that can travel to a festival.

– Art curators.

– Looking at the overall scenery of a festival’s “Art Scape.”

– The cut throat festival industry/ battles between festivals, artists and art branding. Example: If you design for us, you can’t design for them!

– Interactive art and how it provides various functions for a festival. Example: Provides shade at event, serves as a photo opt for attendee’s pictures, creates a location to meet friends at.

– Activation of a brand/How art is incorporated throughout the entire theme of the festival. Example: Capitalizing a logo, festival’s art identity and personality to be included in directional signs, tickets/wristbands, brochures/maps, etc.

– How far in advance do you start a project to fit within a brand or feel for their festival?

– The future of art at festivals and artist tours: How artists now need visual stimulation to sell their (musical) tour, because the music is no longer enough.

TALENT & MANAGEMENT: “What Can Festivals Learn From Tour Managers?”

Moderator: Steve Macfadyen/ Producer and Production Manager at Pollstar Live/Pollstar Concert   and Industry Awards

Panelists: David Norman/ Tour Manager-Tour Accountant-Production Manager-Tour Director  (Prince, John Legend & more), Chuck Randall/ Tour Manager (Grateful Dead and Alice in Chains)

This panel was covered by some of the best on the road managers, that have an impressive resume with top celebrity artists. The panel covered issues tour managers face when a festival can not provide the needs of an artist, and how a festival experience is also important for an artist, their on tour staff and not just attendees.

Topics and discussions included:

– Artists needs while living on the road.

– Can your festival provide artists and their crew proper bathrooms, cell service, hospitality, food allergy needs, and provide closer hotels? If not, how do these issues affect an artists experience with your event.

– Is your festival staff talented and experienced with the above necessities? Do they have the power to make small or sometimes large decisions quickly?

– Riders and how these needs can reflect deal points with an artist tour or festival.

SOCIAL NETWORKS & APPS: “Sharing Events: How To Get Them Talking”

Moderator: Ted Cohen/ Managing Partner Tag Strategic

Panelists: Christophe Daligault/ CMO FireChat by Open Garden, Bart Borrelli/ Business  Development CrowdTorch by Cvent, Melissa Golding/ Digital Content Manager SXSW Conferences  and Festivals, Tucker Gumber/ CEO FestEvo, Mike Walbert/ General Manager A3C Hip Hop  Festival and Conferences

Something massive not only in the festival world but a large part of our culture and future society are the apps, social networks, and process of sharing and staying connected with each other by utilizing them to our full potential. This panel focused on how to get people talking about your festival, and how to interact with your fans to keep a relationship going between you, them and your festival. I found this panel super resourceful for myself as a new blogger and writer within the industry. I took the topics discussed and am now applying them towards building new skills within my brand, production company, and blog.

Topics and discussions included:

– How to get views on videos, pictures, and posts.

– How to talk to your fans and how are they talking to you? Should you delete, ignore or respond to negative comments?

– Create content thats meaningful to your brand. Keeping fans tied to a trusted brand and keeping that relationship going.

– Keeping things simple with design and function. Your app should only take one click to get to your festival line-up. It should be easy and user-friendly or people won’t want to use it.

– Future of apps: Festivals using iBeacon technology which tracks your movements and pushes messages to your phone (as long as you are within proximity, have the app downloaded and have bluetooth turned on).

Stephan Aronsen, VP of Product for FestEvo, drew up this super sweet picture, during the panel discussion!

Did you know? FestEvo will design your festival app free of charge if you currently don’t have one? FestEvo is a social app for festival lovers! Their mission is to make the festival experience more fun, safer for the environment, and more convenient for festival goers, artists, and organizers! Find over hundreds of festivals world-wide, view the festivals line-up, rank your favorite artists, and then listen to the line-up through Soundcloud or Spotify! Find your friends that are going and plan ride shares! Are you ready to “Festival Better?”

TECHNOLOGY: “All Roads Lead To WiFi: Evaluating iBeacon, RFID and Cashless Payment Technologies“

Moderator: Kim Owens/ Editor & Owner Kaffeine Buzz

Panelists: Todd Terrazas/ Founder Brain Itch Solutions, Allen Cook/ Founder TOURtech, Chris  Hammond/ Co-Founder Wine Amplified Festival, Ron Doroba/ Vice President North American Sales EPS America

This panel discussed cashless paying systems, Wi-Fi and connectivity, iBeacons and next-generation mobile apps on smart phones, social media and data intelligence,  and how these technologies play an important role for festival goers and organizers.

Topics and discussions included:

– Pros and cons of technology within the industry, what is our future looking like?

– The importance of festivals having WiFi is now a must, especially with the introduction of cashless paying systems.

– How festivals can start to utilize radio-frequency identification (RFID).

– What are the best practices to evaluate if a venue will work well with your event technologies.

DRUG USE: “Doses And Mimosas: Addressing Drug Use”

Moderator: Stephanie Jones/ Nightlife Community Engagement Manager Drug Policy Alliance

Panelists: Missi Wooldridge/ Executive Director DanceSafe, Cameron Bowman/ Partner VIB Law and Writer at The Festival Lawyer, Joseph Pred/ Founder and CEO Mutual Aid Response Services, Eric Salk/ Medical Director SFX, Stacey Lock/ Harm Reduction Director at Shambhala Festival

This panel focused on major issues that can not be ignored anymore! Attendees safety at an event is extremely important but what are we doing to educate fans and organizers about this issue that is a hard topic to discuss? Drug use, especially in the social environment of festivals has and will always be around, but when alcohol and its use can be addressed in a straightforward manner, but handling use of other substances presents challenges, what can we do? What are smart, pragmatic ways for festivals to address and manage drug use as a health and safety issue?

Topics and discussions included:

– What are the legal risks festivals face and how can they be mitigated.

– Who are your allies and what are the steps you need to take to adopt a new approach for drug use at your festival.

– The impact of “The RAVE Act” and the need to amend this law in the United States.

– The media and news world on drug use.

– How other countries are approaching drug use within their festival and community.

– How can you help to better inform people about the global drug policy.

This is an interesting Drug Statistics chart I found, based off of social media posts about an event. (Unsure of source).

There were so many well thought out panels and discussions, I couldn’t possibly mention them all!

Too see the full 2014 Agenda click here.

FREE AWESOME STUFF

John of Industry Print Shop, screen printing a shirt for me!

The main room hosted rows of tables and booths where sponsors, speakers, and amazing brands of IMFCON, could promote and teach you about their company, of course network some more, but the best part for everyone is all free awesome stuff you get! Industry Print Shop, out of Austin, TX was there, making screen printed shirts and other awesome products right on site. I snagged one of those along with a towel, two beer coolies, stickers and more. I also got some free WordPress sunglasses and pins. Klean Kanteen gave away a free steel reusable cup to reduce liter and waste at festivals and in everyday life in general. Also got a beautiful wine stop from Dark House Wine. One of my favorite products I received were earplugs, that attach to your earrings, made by Ear Angels! One of the major problems with sound at events, is for starters, people don’t use earplugs (guilty) and are damaging their ears (guilty again), and two, earplugs are always easily lost because they are so small. These are designed so you can not lose them, and I think it’s brilliant! Another great company, Hands That Rock, a message for charity company that travels to major concerts and events worldwide, was there giving chair messages! Patrons pay a small fee for the service and a portion of the net proceeds are donated to music programs in cooperation with local music outreach organizations. They also support other non-profits and their causes.

An attendee gets a chair massage by “Hands That Rock”

Now, something really fun the conference did, similar to how festivals use apps to interact with their fans, was a “Q & A Scavenger Hunt” through the BrainItch app! BrainItch develops mission-critical location and communication services for mass gatherings and disaster relief efforts. The company’s platform seamlessly integrates into existing mobile applications for real-time incident reporting and crowd management. Their app can be used at festivals to connect people in an emergency. For example, if someone is dehydrated and about to pass out in a crowd and needs medical assistance but they are 10,000 people deep at a main stage, their friend can request help through BrainItch, an alert will go off to all medical responders in the area, help will dispatch immediately, and they will stay in communication while en route to the area. I think it should be mandatory that every festival uses this service, as it helps saves lives! Now the cool thing about the app is the connection through bluetooth, wireless technology used to exchange data over short distances. While walking around the booths at IMFCON, the BrainItch app would send data to your phone and ask you questions about the company booth you were near, and you would have to answer the question. People who answered the most questions correctly won some serious prizes, including yours truly! I won two Live Nation festival tickets courtesy of BrainItch and LiveNation!!!!! Here are some festivals on the list: Sasquatch!,  EDC Las Vegas, HARD Summer, Paradiso, Made In America, Beyond Wonderland, Nocturnal Wonderland, Escape: All Hallows Eve, HARD: Day of the Dead + more!! Leave me a comment and tell me which one would you go to, I’ve been to none of them! Special thanks to Todd Terrazas, CEO of BrainItch!!!

Here are some other awesome brands I connected with at the conference: #BeSomebody, Runner: Mobile Tech Gear, Music Festival Nation, Boxed Water, Eventbrite, TINT, AFR Furniture, Mesmeric Arts Agency, PDC Innovative ID Solutions, Illumination FireWorks LLC, Vantage.TV, Access Event Solutions, SFX, OnStage Systems, Vendini Ticketing, Pedi Cab People Movers +many, many more!!

FOOD, DRINKS & KEEPIN’ IT WEIRD

Enjoying a ride with live music on the Interstellar Transmissions Bus!

The first day of the conference is on Sunday morning. Let me remind you I came straight from a New York City club on a Friday night, straight to a night out in Austin on a Saturday night. You can re-read that if you want, but it’s just what you would imagine, I was well on my way to Hangover City. However, IMFCON is super considerate of this situation! After you register, they start you off with a free Bloody Mary courtesy of FireChat, made with Tito’s Handcrafted Homemade Vodka! For real? Does this conference know what’s up or what? After a friend’s house party and my first encounter with the dirty sixth (out of control madness!) on a Saturday night, this cocktail was absolutely mandatory, and I don’t even like bloody mary’s! The conference also hosted some nice cocktail parties after the panels, where you could grab some wine or beer and horderves, passed around by guys like this. Does he fit in to our industry or what?

This dude was my homie!

We also had some great after parties to go to, both official and unofficial! Some fun times were had at La Condesa hosted by Eventbrite to “Taco” bout Events! We ate a ton of delicious tacos, sipped on margaritas and mingled over great music and company. Another night, Tucker aka The Festival Guy, planned a night out on the town, and we visited the Food Truck district, and some of us ventured to eat some Texas BBQ, followed by a drinking sesh at Banger’s, a sausage house and beer garden with live music and fire pits! If you wish Banger’s has partnered with Platinum Ink to tattoo you up for free with their logo. (I guess they do go big in Texas!) These activities brought together a lot of people and an amazingly fun time before the official IMFCON after party!

Food Truck District, Austin.

And as if this trip really couldn’t get any more awesome, one night we also got to take a ride on the Interstellar Transmissions bus, an artistic, creative, and super talented, four piece instrumental avant-garde band that’s accompanied by belly dancers. The band tours and play music around the country in and on top of their school bus, better known as “The New Life Mothership.” They are definitely keepin’ Austin weird, but more importantly their music is amazing!!

Amtrac at Kingdom

The final night and of course in my opinion, the perfect way to close out the conference was hitting the dance floor at Kingdom, for Kastle & Amtrac‘s Hyperspace Tour. Special thanks to Jordan of Your EDM for getting a ton of us on the guest list and meet and greet after the show!

Amtrac, myself, and Kastle, Hyperspace Tour Austin!

If you have further questions about IMFCON, any brands, or festivals mentioned, be sure to check out the links associated or leave a comment below! IMFCON will be held December 13-15, 2015 in San Diego, CA, USA. Register here and be sure to tell them you found out about the conference from me! If you are wanting to learn more about music festivals, or be in this industry, this conference is an absolute must! For me, this is the industry I live and breathe for, and ultimately hope to be in forever. Music Festivals + Travel= Planet Poots! See you next year!