Workforce Development Program

Is This Thing On? Finding Your Audience in a Post-Pandemic Market

June 16, 2022

All independent venue employees interested in venue marketing were invited to attend this interactive virtual training event. Learn from industry experts about post-pandemic promotion!

Guided By: Stefanie Haapala Burns (Marketing & Design Specialist at Audiotree)

Featuring: Lennora Jules (CMO at Pabst Theater Group), Leigh Bezezekoff (Marketing & Ticketing Manager at Tractor Tavern), Greta Cornett (Marketing Manager at Bohemian Foundation)

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Get to the Gig! Creative Promotional Ideas Using Your Existing Toolbox

October 19, 2023

Marketing a show isn't all social media ads and gig posters. But if you're working with a small staff, limited budget, or time constraints, it can feel like your shows aren't making a splash. In this session, we'll cover out of the box promotional ideas that stay well, inside the box.

Instructed by: Stefanie Haapala Burns // Digital Marketing Curriculum Developer for VOX & Former Marketing Specialist at Audiotree

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Grow with Google: Learn the Basics of Google Ads

October 26, 2023

In this workshop you will learn how to reach more customers and grow your business with Google Ads. We will cover how to create an account and set up an ad campaign, how to improve ad performance, and how to measure success.

Instructed by: Robert Martinez // Google Digital Coach

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Aprende los Conceptos Básicos de Google Ads

30 de noviembre de 2023

En este taller, aprenderás a llegar a más clientes y a hacer crecer tu negocio con Google Ads. Te enseñaremos a crear una cuenta y a configurar una campaña publicitaria, a mejorar el rendimiento de tus anuncios y a medir el éxito.

Instructor: Roberto Martinez // Google Digital Coach

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Grow with Google: Learn the Basics of Google Ads

October 26, 2023

Instructed by: Robert Martinez // Google Digital Coach

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Mastering Community Engagement: Amplifying Your Impact Through Collaboration with Local Radio Stations

May 16, 2024

Instructed by: John Vettese // Digital Content Editor/Producer & Host of XPN Local at XPN

Alyssa Ursetti // Program Director at 107.3 Alternative Cleveland

Ron Bostwick // Evening Show Host/Promotions Director at The Colorado Sound

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Bar Pricing: Pour costs, supply cost, inventory and more!

August 4, 2022

This virtual session includes instruction covering a range of factors when determining bar pricing. Sam Gearing is an 11-year Food and Beverage veteran and currently the Bar Manager at The UC Theatre in Berkeley, CA.

Instructed By: Sam Gearing (Bar Manager at The UC Theatre)

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So You Have a Show to Settle? From understanding the deal to settling the show

October 6, 2022

Come ready to learn and build a solid foundation from industry experts who will address things like: Does the offer match the contract? Are you ready to start an artist and internal prelim? Is this a rental? Do you understand the audit? What will the tour manager and your bookkeeper want to see? Settlement templates will be provided!

Instructed by the team from Production Simple & Headliners Music Hall, including Cory Mullins (General Manager), Mez Hendrix-Inman (Production Manager), Scotty Haulter (Director of Ops)

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Rock ‘n Roll Risk Management

March 30, 2023

General Insurance and risk management 101

Venue coverages, limits, cancellation coverages, state of the industry, red flags, loss mitigation, risk transfer and more!

Instructed By: Cameron Smith (Senior Vice President at HUB Entertainment), Win Williams (Senior Vice President at Hub International Risk Services)

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The Guest Experience: How To Provide Top-Notch Service to Ensure Repeat Ticket Buyers

April 20, 2023

Customer service may sound easy, but in a live music/comedy setting, guests and situations can be unpredictable. Learn new ways to ensure quality customer service while adhering to your policies and procedures. Empower your staff to make choices that best serve the venue and your clientele. Make your venue a destination where your customers can’t wait to come back.

Instructed By: Antoine Griffin (General Manager at DC Improv Comedy Club), Mallorie McRea (Ticketing & Guest Services Manager at World Cafe Live), Sarah Tisinger (Operations Manager at Washington’s & The Armory)

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Cash Flow 101 - Sharing & Simplifying

September 21, 2023

Weekly management of cash flow forecast is a critical weekly activity to ensure your business is on the right track. This session will share various strategies to effectively manage your venue’s cash flow in a workable model with an eye on efficiency. Viewing the model as a tool leveraging its contents for multiple purposes to encourage a highly effective presentation to owners, operators and finance members. Dive into understanding cash flow and sharing financials.

Instructed By: Richard Malenczuk, CPA & Chief Financial Officer at City Winery. Richard is an experienced financial executive with over 25 years experience, with the most recent 15 years in concert promotion/ venue operations/ hospitality realm.

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What Makes A Venue A “Must Play” For Touring Artists

February 15, 2024

Instructed By: Adam Hartke // WAVE & Cotillion Co-owner, D Tour founder, and Midtopia Board Member

Jessie Hartke // WAVE & Cotillion Co-owner, D Tour founder, and Midtopia Board Member

Rudy Love Jr. // Touring & Recording Artist and Midtopia Board Member

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Talent Buying 101: Clubs and Small Fests

March 21, 2024

Instructed By: Jordan Anderson // Talent Buyer, Troubadour

Hunter Motto // Creative Director, The Crocodile

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Monthly Profit/Loss Reporting for Your Business

July 18, 2024

Instructed By: Richard Malenczuk, CPA & Chief Financial Officer at City Winery. Richard is an experienced financial executive with over 25 years experience, with the most recent 15 years in concert promotion/ venue operations/ hospitality realm.

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Grow with Google: Learn the Basics of Google Ads

August 22, 2024

In this workshop you will learn how to reach more customers and grow your business with Google Ads. We will cover how to create an account and set up an ad campaign, how to improve ad performance, and how to measure success.

Instructed by: Robert Martinez // Google Digital Coach

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Preparing for the Worst: Active Attacker Detection and Response Training

June 30, 2022

Learn how to aid efforts in making venues and events safer and more secure for staff and patrons. This training includes instruction on Best Practices in threat prevention, recognition, mitigation, and response to an active attacker.

Instructed By: Jeff Broaddus (President at Broaddus Defense)

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Beyond the Headlines: Production Safety for Venues

November 3, 2022

We all want our events to be “safe”. But what exactly does that mean, and how do we achieve that goal? In this session, representatives from the Event Safety Alliance will explore the four key principles of event safety, workers’ & operators' legal duty of care, useful planning & training resources, and the greatest safety risks facing live productions and how to control them (hint: they’re mostly not what you see in the news headlines).

Instructed By: Event Safety Alliance

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Keeping Our Scene Safe: Sexual Violence Prevention & Response in Live Music

May 18, 2023

In recent years we've seen just how pervasive sexual violence is throughout the entire entertainment industry and yet still the music industry is not being proactive in addressing harassment and harm. Attendees of this training will leave with tangible skills to intervene safely and effectively in any harmful situation; tips for crafting violence prevention policies on the road and at independent venues; and a better understanding of your rights to a safe workplace. We are all responsible for taking care of our music communities and keeping our scenes safe.

Instructed By: Maggie Arthur (Director at Here for the Music)

*Recording Not Available

Overdose Prevention For Venues 101

June 15, 2023

Coalition for Overdose Solutions in the Music Industry & Community (COSMIC) along with beats overdose will conduct a virtual training that will share what we’ve learned and address the basics of overdose prevention and reversal for venues. This curriculum will be crafted to meet the needs of venue owners and operators, it will include the following: 1) Overview of opioid overdoses, 2) Reversal and prevention interventions, 3) How to prepare your business and your staff, 4) Obstacles we’ve encountered and the solutions they’ve inspired, and 5) Overdose prevention efforts around the country. Training will conclude with a Q&A and awareness of community resources.

Instructed By: Nikki Jean (Social Responsibility Director at Rhymesayers Entertainment), Morgan Godvin (Founder of beats overdose)

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Threat and Vulnerability Assessments of Physical Spaces

August 17, 2023

Examining your venue’s physical space should be as routine as locking the doors, but if you don’t know what to look for, the most consequential weaknesses may go unnoticed. This training will demonstrate why meaningful physical evaluation of your event or property needs to be second nature.

Instructed By: Jeff Broaddus (President, Broaddus Defense)

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De-Escalation: Dos & Don’ts

November 16, 2023

This class will be full of scenarios, tips and tricks, proven methods, and opportunities to talk through tense situations using best practices. It’s helpful to explore these kinds of what-ifs in a safe space with diverse ideas from trusted friends and peers.

Instructed By: Jeff Broaddus (President, Broaddus Defense)

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Beyond Zero Tolerance: Anti-Harassment Policy 101

January 18, 2024

Expand outside of zero tolerance and create a procedure that protects employees, non-employees and fans. Attend this working session presented by the Here For The Music campaign of Calling All Crows and learn our formula for writing your own sexual violence prevention and response protocol as well as the opportunity to get real-time feedback from the Director of Here For The Music.

Maggie Arthur, Director of Here For The Music, has been helping make venues, festivals and other live-music spaces safer since 2017 by both writing internal policies and facilitating trainings for staff, artists and fans.

Instructed By: Maggie Arthur (Director at Here for the Music)

*Recording Not Available

Disability Inclusion for Venues

September 15, 2022

In this session, we learn best practices for being inclusive of people with disabilities at their venues. This includes disability etiquette fundamentals, ADA regulations, common types of reasonable modifications needed, communication accessibility, etc.

Instructed By: Tess Stanton (Training Facilitator at Rocky Mountain ADA Center)

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Physical Accessibility for Venues

September 29, 2022

In this session, participants will learn about the physical access requirements for venues, including the ADA regulations and Standards for Accessible Design. We will discuss common barriers to physical accessibility, and strategies for removing barriers.

Instructed By: Tess Stanton (Training Facilitator at Rocky Mountain ADA Center)

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Microaggression: Identifying & Undoing Bias

December 1, 2022

Walking through your venue doors are people representing a wide variety of identities, including racial background, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability status. Learn how to ensure everyone feels welcome, respected, and safe at all of your events. Understand the commonplace verbal, behavioral, and environmental microaggressions experienced by people from minority groups. Can these actions affect people even when they’re unintentional? Explore and understand the definition of bias. Garner tools to identify and address microaggressions in the workplace and beyond.

Instructed by the team at Campus Outreach Services, including Katie Koestner (Executive Director), Tierra Barber (Diversity & Inclusivity Coordinator)

*Recording Not Available

Accessible and Inclusive Events by RAMPD

December 7, 2023

A discussion between disabled music professionals on easy and affordable ways venues can eliminate common access barriers for talent, teams, and audiences alike! ASL access and captions are provided for this event.

Instructed by: The team at RAMPD -Elizabeth McLain, PhD (she/her), Rev. Chris Wylie (DJ Pastor Rock) (he/they), Precious Perez (she/her)

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Grow with Google: Make Your Small Business More Accessible

January 25, 2024

Continuing our partnership with Grow With Google, this workshop will introduce you to tools and tactics for making your website and digital marketing more accessible. Come with your questions and get ready to improve your web presence and digital marketing!

Instructed by: Roberto Martinez, Google Digital Coach

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Understanding Bias in Everyday Interactions

April 18, 2024

Instructed by: Ariana Flores, The Equity Project

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Mental Health Attuned to Our Unique Industry

January 19, 2023

Long hours, late nights, constant pressures, and tensions that are unique to the independent venue industry can take a toll on our mental health. In this session, we will learn strategies to aid in our well-being.

Instructed By: Chad Karger (Director & Porter at Porter’s Call)

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Use Words: Say What You Mean (Conflict-Resolution Series Part 1)

February 16, 2023

Clinical social worker, relationship coach, mediator, and author of "Easyish: Keys To A (Relatively) Easy Relationship" Amy L. Miller joins us for a bit of a "Healthy Communication 101" session. Before we can build healthy teams, we must establish good communication habits. She will walk us through what gets in the way of assertive, healthy, and nonviolent communication, and offer skills and strategies for doing it better.

Instructed By: Amy Miller, MSW, LCSW (Owner of Roots & Keys Coaching, LLC )

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Use Words: How to Do Conflict Well (Conflict-Resolution Series Part 2)

March 16, 2023

Under even the best of circumstances, conflict is inevitable. Join us to discuss ways to approach necessary conflict in a proactive way that is intentional, and which prioritizes resolution. This session will include tips and tools for effective conflict resolution as well as opportunities to practice the skills.

Instructed By: Amy Miller, MSW, LCSW (Owner of Roots & Keys Coaching, LLC )

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Mindful Stress Management for Live Music Community

August 15, 2024

Join us for:

• Discussion of the mechanics of stress and how we can be mindful about the causes/effects

• Healthy ways to respond to and support yourself through high-pressure/high-demand work situations

• Discussions about setting boundaries, better ways to deal with conflict, and de-escalate

• Dealing with overwhelm/avoiding burnout

• How venue managers/operators can support their staff

• How venue staff can support their co-workers

Instructed By: Nicole Blonder // Integrative Health Coach

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L-Acoustics Presents: Challenges of Sound System Design in Live Events

September 26 , October 17 & November 21, 2024

These sessions are derived from the official L-Acoustics “Intro to Pro Audio by L-Acoustics: Live Sound” course, split into 3 complementary virtual sessions. The course introduces the live sound world and presents the L-Acoustics tools to design and operate live sound events. Participants will learn about the components and signal chain of a live sound system by building a model of a sound system design in L-Acoustics’ professional modelling software Soundvision and design the controlling interface in Network Manager. They will also gain an understanding of the workflow and jobs available in live sound projects.

Ability level: Foundational

Instructed By: Arica Rust // Trainers Network Manager

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Adding or Becoming a Nonprofit

October 24, 2024

Highlights of this workshop includes:

• small for-profit venues adding a non-profit entity to help get support for programming

• process and the rules of the road to avoid creating big tax liabilities

Instructed By:Hal Real // Founder & CEO at World Cafe Live

Laura Wilson // Head of Live Music at Bohemian Foundation

Christopher A. Jones // Partner at Ballard Spahr LLP

Olive Scibelli // Co-Executive Director at Drkmttr Collective

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