Marketing Club to Nashville

On Friday at roughly 1:15AM, the Marketing Club left Oshkosh to explore Nashville for the weekend and gather some knowledge on the workings of the music industry. We arrived at Chicago Midway before 5:00am and waited around for our flight to depart at 7:50am. Everyone was pretty tired, but yet excited at the same time. The majority of people rested up for what further entailed that day.
The sun rising was a welcome sight as we knew we would be flying out soon.

Our flight departed on time and we arrived safely in Nashville with a welcoming temperature in the 50's. Although not too warm, but it was still warmer than Wisconsin. The first event planned for the day was to visit Belmont University and get an inside look at what is going on the music industry today.

Belmont University is a school of over 4,500 students that offers both a Business degree and a music business degree along with many other degrees. We met with former UW Oshkosh faculty member Dr. Jeff Cornwall, now in the entrepreneurship program at Belmont and some other people straight from the music industry.
Scott Rouse, is an energetic producer who has received Grammy nominations and now focuses on producing blue grass music.
Rachel Barnhard, who is originally from the Midwest and now heads an interactive data based Marketing agency that focuses on the music and entertainment industry in Nashville.

There was a lot of energy in the room as it was very interesting to hear about some of the insides and evolution of the music industry. A popular topic was how the music industry was evolving in the digital age. They explained about the new mediums that the internet and other technology provided to market the music industry. Traditional media was on the way out as Itunes, phone apps, internet campaigns and more were the new next big thing.

The most interesting topic of note which can be related back to all students was the importance of creating relationships and networking with people. They all stressed how important this was being one of the bigger factors of being successful in the music industry. As the popular saying was, "It is not what you know, but who knows you and what they think about you."



After the great visit to Belmont, we were off and headed to Capitol Records to get the story from their CEO and various marketing departments.

The presentation from Capitol Records was great as it provided a different outlook on the music industry than Belmont offered. Capitol Records used more of a traditional method to market their signed artists. The one reoccurring topic from Belmont to Capitol Records though was the importance of creating relationships and networking with people. Each speaker told their story of moving to Nashville and developing their relationships to achieve their job position. After the Capitol Records presentation, the whole club was lucky to receive Cd's from some of Capitol Record's artists including Lady Antebellum, Luke Bryan, Eric Church and Keith Urban.