Madison Interactive, a group for people who work on public websites – both for work and for play – in the Madison area – is hosting its second free event. Whether you’re uploading articles to a local media website or just tending a personal blog, we want you to join us and share your experiences. And to make it all even more interesting, we’ll also be having a brief panel discussion with some local online music promoters.
Please pass this note on to everyone you think might be interested and leave a comment on this post if you’re coming.
Panel Discussion Details:
MadInteractive Panel No. 2 – Music Promotion on the Internet
Location:
The High Noon Saloon
Event Time/Date:
5 – 7pm on April 30, 2007
Panel Time:
5:30 to 6pm
Details:
(Panelists, please show up at 5:20 at the very latest.)
Topic: Music Promotion on the Internet
The discussion will center around the importance of the Internet for music promotion and touch on the different outlets available for that promotion (websites, MySpace, SonicBids, etc.)
Moderator:
Jessica Thompson of contessasays.com
Panelists:
* Roy Elkin from Broadjam
* Matt Jacoby, founder and president of LocalSounds.org
* Allen McGuire, founder of MadtownLounge.com
* Nick Venturella (singer/songwriter, and also currently writing a book on the Independent Wisconsin Music Scene)
* Tom Klein, promotional mastermind behind The Journey Music.
About the moderator and panelists:
Moderator: Jessica Thompson is the founder and executive director of the Foundation of Retaining Creative Energy (FoRCE). FoRCE is a local non-profit that operates as an umbrella organization for several entities that provide promotional education and support to the local music and arts scenes. Organizations underneath FoRCE include Contessa Says (online cultural magazine, www.contessasays.com) , Leigh Artistic Promotions, Open Art Studios, and the upcoming bi-annual Madison Music Guide. Thompson strives to create a creative cultural scene in which the local talents can get the appreciation and respect that they deserve.
Panelist: Roy Elkins is a well-known music technology entrepreneur who has been leading industry innovations for over twenty years. Elkins is the Founder and CEO of Broadjam Inc., serving independent musicians and industry giants such as The Academy of Country Music, Warner/Chappell, Peavey, and others. Broadjam.com, the company’s popular independent web site now hosts over 70,000 artists and 350,000 songs. The site is known for its musician-friendly services, including website hosting, artist profiles, reviews, contests, transmit mechanism, charts, download sales and deliveries to radio, film, TV and advertisers. Before founding Broadjam, Elkins was the Vice President-Sales & Marketing for Sonic Foundry, and held several Director-level positions with Ensoniq Corporation. He maintains a database of over 5,000 music industry contacts including executives at virtually every company in the music industry and past and/or present clients such as Les Paul, D.J. Jazzy Jeff, the Beach Boys, the Allman Brothers, BoyzIIMen, Joe Walsh, ELP, Yes, Journey, Skid Row, Randy Jackson, Will Smith and many others. He is a musician and songwriter who thoroughly understands the musician’s world.
Panelist: Matt Jacoby is the founder and president of Local Sounds. Local Sounds is a collaborative effort among several businesses in the Madison, Wisconsin area with the goal of promoting independent music in a new way, as well as creating a centralized resource for local and touring artists alike. The independent music organization was conceptualized in 2004 and formed in 2005. Local Sounds has been the umbrella for organizations such as Rick’s Café, Gimp Radio, IndieEra, and MadCity Tube. Jacoby has also had a large volunteer role since 2005 in the production of the Madison Area Music Awards. Matt Jacoby has been a musician for 13 years of his life, performing with bands such as Planet of 9.
Panelist: Allen McGuire is the founder and owner of MadTownLounge.com. MadTownLounge.com is an entertainment website focusing on local music, food, and nightclubs of Madison, WI. McGuire is a professional computer programmer and Database Administrator. He has a BS is from UW-Stout and his Masters is in Computer Information Systems. Outside of work McGuire does Search Engine Optimization (madisonseo.com) and of course the MadTown Lounge (madtownlounge.com). In his quest to learn a couple new technologies in March ‘06, he got a wild hair to start up a website to bring together my technological skills and personal interests (entertainment) – that is how the MadTown Lounge came about. As things progressed, McGuire got fascinated with marketing on the Internet, which largely depends on how well your website ranks in the SERPs (Search Engine results). That is when I got involved in Search Engine Optimization. “As I learned how to get high rankings for venues all across Madison, the traffic to the MadTownLounge began to increase. I started adding more features that related to venues – reviews, bands, maps, calendars, etc. All helped the site gain more traction. One year later the site has become a pretty solid marketing tool for area bands and traffic has spiked to 40,000 page views per month. The MadTown Lounge ranks in the top three for nearly every member band and venue (most popular search format: “<band/venue name> <city>”).
Panelist: Nick Venturella is an indie folk/pop singer/songwriter & college market performer. Venturella has been writing, performing, and promoting his music for over 12 years. He has eight albums under his belt, five of which are independent solo releases. Venturella has a wealth of knowledge and expertise from his indie music experience, bachelor’s degree in visual art, and professional marketing work experience in both corporate America and in higher education. Venturella also offers marketing services to entrepreneurial musicians and small businesses. Currently, Venturella is compiling a book of interviews with Wisconsin independent musicians and music professionals called Wisconsin Indies (www.myspace.com/wisconsinindies). Feel free to check out his websites: www.nickvmusic.net, www.cafepress.com/nickvmusic, www.myspace.com/nickventurella, www.sonicbids.com/nickventurella
Panelist: Tom Klein is the promotional mastermind behind The Journey Music. The Journey Music is a promotion company, booking agency, management company, and with our partners a record label. They started as a small all-ages venue across from Camp Randall Stadium in downtown Madison, WI. With the upcoming destruction of the space, the organization has expanded into the promotional and booking company that it is today. Klein has been responsible for the booking and promotion of hundreds of shows in the Madison area. A large percentage of these shows have been targeted at the all-age market.
Once again, please pass this note on to everyone you think might be interested and leave a comment on this post if you’re coming.
We hope to see you there!
MadInteractive
April 24, 2007 at 6:54 am
I’ll be there.
April 24, 2007 at 7:55 am
See you there Jessica – thanks for putting this together.
April 24, 2007 at 11:20 am
I plan on being there.
I added this to upcoming.org for my own calendaring convenience. If you use that too:
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/183596
Also, one thing I thought about after last time that might be cool and not take a ton of effort: adding “your URLs” to the sign in sheet. Then maybe a post on the blog here with the results… it’d be kinda cool to see some of the sites that are locally maintained.
April 24, 2007 at 6:41 pm
Definately will try to be there. Sounds informative and we needs all the help we can get when it comes to the internets. Did you here they have it on computers now?
April 27, 2007 at 12:34 pm
hey, I think i’ll be coming. sounds like a good event!
John
April 30, 2007 at 10:03 am
I apologize for the late reply! We will have 2 web-friendly folks there for the event. Thank you for the invite!
-Wendy and Dianna
April 30, 2007 at 11:01 am
Who are these people? Where are the bands that have actually utilized the internet via blogging, myspace, and more to book tours, sell CDs, and find contacts?
Box Social booked an entire tour via MySpace contacts.
Crustacean Records is almost completely dependent on Internet sales.
Caustic has had huge success promoting online and also has a number of interesting thoughts on how file sharing hurts his bottom line and how to overcome it.
Muzzle Of Bees is a very important national music blog that brings tons of attention to local artists.
April 30, 2007 at 11:24 am
David,
This is all stated in their bios but just to recap for you…Nick Venturella is one of the musicians you speak of that utilizes the internet for promotion and recognition. Broadjam is an international music company that helps thousands of musicians and bands promote their music. Local Sounds is a Madison music organization that is the umbrella for Gimp Radio, MadCity Tube, and the former Rick’s Cafe. MadTown Lounge is a great entertainment website that most Madison bands and musicians utilize for promotion. The Journey Music has done amazing things for the local music scene, especially the all-age band and fan scene. Roy, Matt, and Tom are also musicians as well as currently working on the promotional side of music.
I agree that Box Social, Caustic, and Crustacean Records are all wonderful examples of individuals/groups that utilize the internet to the fullest music promotion possibilities. We can, however, only have a certain number of people on a panel. The list was very long and full of very qualified individuals. We may do another panel like this again in the future in which we would use a different set of panelists.
MadInteractive is going to be doing a panel on music blogging. Ryan from Muzzle of Bees is on the top of the list to be asked to be involved with that panel. That is why he was not asked to be part of this panel.
Thank you for expressing your thoughts about the panel. I hope that you will attend tonight’s discussion to hear what these five individuals have to say on the subject.
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