Calling all musicians, music businesses, music nonprofits, and anyone else working in music! The Music District is hosting free coworking on Tuesday, February 25. Enjoy free coffee and snacks, connect with others working in music in Northern Colorado, and visit the Musicians’ Help Desk with any music-related questions you may have. Enjoy some noteworthy networking and coffee tasting time with your fellow ARTup attendees before we kick off our day of creativity and collaboration!

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Speakers:

Mickey Davis
The Music District
Business of Music Manager
Talk to me about music business, artists as entrepreneurs, sustainable careers in the arts, music tech, coworking, and, most importantly, your favorite album right now

The Digital Marketing Tools You Need to Get Started and How to Use Them

This panel is a mix between straight-up digital marketing and music industry grit. Meet Sophia Babb, digital marketing and social media strategy professional, and Amanda Alexandrakis (founder of Music Promotion, Inc.), a 25 year veteran in strategic marketing in the music business. Together, they will combine their skills to help you maneuver the volatile field of digital marketing for artists and bands.

This panel will walk you through the steps needed to promote yourself online. Topics include how to optimize your website and social media pages, what content should you include, how to create and control your online presence, and how (and when) to advertise. Drawing from their experiences in both the indie and not-so-indie worlds, Amanda and Sophie will discuss how to craft a social media strategy that you need in order to survive in the digital age of music.

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Speakers:

Sophia Babb
Sophia is a storyteller at heart, and a marketer by trade. In her childhood, Sophia would spend hours telling stories to her little sister to help her fall asleep at night. In her teens, she wrote stories through song lyrics and poetry. In college, she wrote stories for newspapers and outlets such as The Pioneer in Oklahoma City and Bloomberg News in Washington D.C. Now, she tells the stories of high-impact nonprofits and forward-thinking businesses through smart social media strategy. When she’s not busy writing down ideas, she’s probably outdoors rock-climbing, hiking, gardening, or playing her guitar. Sophia is also a member of the musical duo, Annie Oakley, an indie folk rock band.

Amanda Alexandrakis
Music Promotion, Inc.
Founder
Amanda Alexandrakis (Founder/Owner of Music Promotion, Inc.) With over 25 years of experience in the music business, Amanda Alexandrakis has become one of the leading names in music marketing. Ms. Alexandrakis has a Certificate in Disruptive Strategy from Harvard Business School (online), a Degree in Marketing and a Masters’s degree in International Business both from Florida International University. She has run a record label (Dalin Records), multiple promotion companies in various genres and has worked in almost every facet of the music industry. For 12 years, she was the Vice-President of South Beach Marketing & Promotion (SBMP), a radio promotion company that specialized in A/C radio campaigns in the USA. From 2004-2008, SBMP was the European Music Office’s (EMO) US Radio Consultant. Amanda was also the Worldwide Radio Consulting/Marketing Director for the David Lynch Foundation Music and (through a re-organization of the company) held the title as Radio Promotions Manager for TMusic (Transdental Music – a charity label owned by the DLF). Ms. Alexandrakis is also the Founder/Owner of Music Promotion, Inc. Her specialty is international strategic marketing and radio promotion. Her clients span from indie bands to Grammy-nominated and winning artists. She is an active member of the Recording Academy (Grammys) & The American Marketing Association.

Kick your career into high gear at the 2020 Artup Week “Creative Outfitters” Expo.  Equip yourself with the key promotional and professional elements that make for a polished portfolio. We’ll have industry experts on hand to give you feedback on artist statements and band bios, and professionals to connect with about press kits, contracts, graphic design, and more. Prep for upcoming festival submissions, map a tour, learn about video resources, and even get your updated band photos or solo headshots. (Designed for all types of artists, musicians and creatives)

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Speakers:

Peggy Lyle
Director, Downtown Fort Collins Creative District
Peggy Lyle has been a creative force in Fort Collins and Northern Colorado for over 20 years and she loves to get involved. Peggy is passionate about the arts and creative approaches to business, branding and communications. With 20+ years of event production, marketing, and entertainment programming for Downtown Fort Collins and The Rhythm Co., she’s aided musicians, performers, galleries, artists, non-profits, small businesses and events navigate promotion, audience cultivation, programming and business strategy. Currently serving as a creative business consultant, event planner and director of the Downtown Fort Collins Creative District. Highlight Projects/Boards: Bohemian Nights at NewWestFest, FoCoMX, Larimer County Small Business Development Center, Colorado Brewers’ Festival, FoCo Book Fest, FC Gallery Walk, Startup Week Fort Collins, the TriMedia Film Festival and Create Places.

We are thankful for all the creatives in our community! Attend this unique networking event with your fellow artists, enjoy tasty tea and snacks. A short presentation from STAMP Executive Director, Jennifer Zidon, a original musical performance from Phil Donaldson and lots of great conversations are sure to occur – Come share in the gratitude!

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Speakers:

Phil Donaldson
PropelGrowth
VP, Marketing & Creative
Phil Donaldson is VP, Marketing & Creative at PropelGrowth, a B2B marketing consultancy serving the Financial Technology space. With 25+ years of experience, Phil has helped companies with branding, content development, creative direction and media production. Phil has spoken and moderated panel discussions at business conferences as well as speaking at the City Of Fort Collins 2018 Juneteenth event. He is also an accomplished musician (composer, arranger, singer, keyboardist and producer) and believes that there’s an invisible sun that gives us hope when the whole day’s done.
Jennifer Zidon
STAMP
Executive Director
STAMP is an educational charity. It is a job-training program for artists, musicians, and performers who want to prosper professionally by touring in a way that is best for the environment. With our partners, through lectures, classes, and symposiums, STAMP’s Road Scholar program educates selected, emerging artists on the skills needed to plan, book, and negotiate a successful and environmentally sustainable tour. STAMP’s Road Residencies provide a free, safe, and reliable touring vehicle along with clean burning biodiesel so that the band can put into practice everything they learned in our classes. Bands that have never toured before will be able to jump start their careers safely and sustainably.

 

Work till 5 and want to catch a session? This session is for you! Creatives create – that’s what we do best. For your creation to get out to the world, a number of non-creative tasks need completed – booking a tour, answering emails, planning upcoming releases – all of which can be difficult to stay on top of, especially when managing the rest of life as well.

In this session, musicians and superstar DIY project managers, Sarah Slaton and Alysia Kraft will demonstrate- using real projects submitted by those in attendance- how to create realistic timelines that honor the creative spirit and projects that inspired them. From the big details, such as avoiding burnout and knowing when to invest in yourself, to the specifics, like how project management tools can help your band, Sarah and Alysia will facilitate a hands-on workshop that honors creativity and creative output.

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Speakers:

Alysia Kraft
Alysia Kraft chokes up sometimes talking about how much she loves music… how grateful she is that one day in her early twenties she was visited by a strange and insistent compulsion to play it herself, to make her own music, to convince others to play with her, to play small stages, and then bigger ones, to make records, and then better ones. Because fate is strange and sometimes hilarious, Alysia has shared stages with Bon Jovi, Blondie, and Bonnie Raitt (to name a few starting with the letter “B”), has amassed devoted and enduring fanbases for projects The Patti Fiasco and Whippoorwill, and more recently, landed a job working alongside artists on their own creative careers at the Music District as Artist Development Coordinator. Conversations around the power of creativity are her favorite, with conversations about reaching people in the world with that you’ve created… a very close second.

Sarah Slaton
My name is Sarah Slaton. I spent 2015-18 fronting and managing, Edison, a national touring act from Denver. We played 350+ shows and traveled 170,000 miles. During that time we were featured at festivals like SXSW, CMJ, and Folk Alliance. As manager I helped lead communication between team members (Label, Legal, Radio, PR, Band). My educational background is a B.S. in Entertainment Management. Throughout the last decade I have worked with Live Nation, AEG Live, ESPN (X Games), The Vinefield Agency, CID Entertainment, and SpokesBUZZ, a music non-profit. My passion for the entertainment industry has led me to champion other artists, amplify the Colorado music scene, and cultivate my own career as a songwriter and performer.

The Punk Pan-Indian Romantic Comedy is a music-themed talk and performance piece by Indigenous artist and activist Gregg Deal. This new work focuses on the music that has moved him throughout his life, speaking in stories and antidotes that follow a timeline of struggle, survival, and ultimately healing through the power of music. A work that is upsetting, dramatic and at times pretty funny outlines the way music has affected Deal’s life from his earliest memories to the present and how it has influenced his ideas, his artistic work and his voice.

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Speakers:

Greg Deal

Gregg Deal is a husband, father, member of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, artist and activist. As a provocative contemporary artist-activist, much of Deal’s work centers around Indigenous identity and pop culture, touching on issues of race relations, historical consideration and stereotype. With this work—including paintings, mural work, and performance art—Deal critically examines issues within Indian country such as decolonization, stereotype and appropriation.

Deal grew up in Utah and was primarily self taught in art. Having gravitated towards graffiti, Deal spent a significant amount of time honing his craft as a graffiti artist through the 90’s. Upon meeting his wife, Deal went to college in the Washington, DC area and focused his craft in fine art. When Deal completed his studies, he worked for the National Museum of the American Indian during its inaugural year, won a mentorship with indigenous performance artist James Luna, and struck out on his own to pursue the arts full time. Amidst this time, Deal worked as an advocate for change of the Washington Football Team name and finished his first major performance piece, “The Last American Indian On Earth”, gaining notoriety and ground as an up-and-coming artist.

After living in the Washington DC area for 17 years, Deal moved his family to Colorado while working as the Native Arts Artist-in-Residence at the Denver Art Museum. Deal continues to work on various issues while pushing his craft in painting, mural and performative work; speaking in various places around the country; participating in shows; advocating for various issues affecting Indigenous people; and constantly pushing for critical thought and historical consideration for contemporary Indigenous art.

Most recently, a photograph of Deal was included in the December 2018 National Geographic Society Magazine article “Native Americans are recasting views of indigenous life”, has been Native Arts Artist-in-Residence at the Denver Art Museum in 2015-2016 and 2017, and Artist In Residence at UC Berkeley for the 2017-2018 school year. His art has been exhibited nationally since 2002. Deal has lectured widely at prominent educational institutions and museums, including: Denver Art Museum, Denver, C.O.; Dartmouth College, Hanover, N.H.; Columbia University, New York City, N.Y.; and Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, D.C. His television appearances have included PBS’s The Art District and The Daily Show.

Don’t miss a special one-night-only screening of 16 Bars featuring a Q&A with Speech Thomas at The Lyric!

Presented in partnership with The Lyric, Washington’s, and KRFC 88.9 FM Radio Fort Collins, 16 Bars is a feature-length music doc that offers a rare glimpse at the human stories — and songs — that are locked away in our nation’s jails and prisons. In a Virginia jail’s makeshift recording studio, four men collaborate on an album with Grammy-winning recording artist, Todd “Speech” Thomas, from the hip-hop group Arrested Development.

Immediately following the film, KRFC 88.9 FM Radio Fort Collins presents the Music District Mic Check: A Conversation with Speech Thomas. Mic Check invites you to go behind-the-scenes and beyond the music with intimate conversations featuring your favorite musicians and industry insiders. Veteran hip hop journalist and radio DJ Kyle Eustice moderates this discussion.

Date: Wednesday, February 26
Time: 7pm (film), 8:30pm (Mic Check conversation)
Location: The Lyric
For tickets and more information:
https://lyriccinema.com/movie/16-bars

About Speech:
Speech is an award winning artist, consistently pushing the artistic and social envelope. He is the leader of the 2x Grammy Award winning hip-hop collective, Arrested Development. He and the group have been a ground-breaking force in Hip-hop culture since 91. Their debut album, “3 Years, 5 Months and 2 Days in the Life of…” (EMI), sold over 4 million albums, earned them two Grammy awards for Best New Artist and Best Rap Single (Tennessee), 2 MTV awards, (People Everyday), a Soul Train Music Award, and the coveted NAACP Image Award. Rolling Stone magazine named them Band of The Year (92), while VH-1 named them one of the greatest Hip-hop artists of all time! The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame even named the AD smash “Tennessee” one of the 500
Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. Speech has continued to be a trailblazer with the group and as a solo artist sharing stages with Nelson Mandela, Minister Louis Farrakhan, Hilary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, he is the categorical definition of legendary.

 

About Kyle:
Omaha native Kyle Eustice is an accomplished music journalist whose bylines have appeared in publications such as The Source, Wax Poetics, Consequence Of Sound, Okayplayer, Ghettoblaster Magazine and Vice. She’s currently a staff writer/editor for HipHopDX, news chief for Public Enemy’s Chuck D, High Times contributor and senior writer for Thrasher Skateboard Magazine. Kyle lives in Fort Collins with her husband Paul Lukes, and two chihuahuas Paco and Petey. In her spare time, she can be found somewhere backstage with a recorder in her hand or cruising down the Poudre Trail bumping Too $hort on her bicycle.

 

 

Join the Music District for Sonic Social, a party immersed in musical mash-ups, collaboration, and remixes, where you are invited to plug in, turn up, and party on.

Sonic Social will feature live performances from Bevin Luna, Whippoorwill, The Nightshades, and Co-Stanza who have teamed up with local songwriters from bands including The Burroughs, Slow Caves, Robert Shredford, and The Annie Oakley in a genre-bending musical showcase!

Experience hands-on interactives celebrating our sonic community, a drop-in music lesson extravaganza, photo booth, prizes, cash bar, a food truck, and more! FoCoMX will be onsite hosting Local Band Bingo and will have wristbands you can snap up for this year’s festival!

Free with RSVP | All Ages | 4pm-9pm

Poster art mash-up by Mike McPuff & Jakob Mueller