Portland Music Foundation educational seminars, round 3
Members-only event Nov. 5, thanks to a grant from the Maine Arts Commission, looks at radio and online promotion
PORTLAND, Maine—The Portland Music Foundation’s educational series continues with a members-only educational event Nov. 5. It will be held at 6:30 p.m., with doors open at 6 p.m., at One Longfellow Square, in Portland. The PMF educational series, “Music as a Profession,” is presented thanks to a grant from the Maine Arts Commission.
Educational sessions have drawn hundreds of attendees to events held this year. The organization now has more than 225 total members.
• The Nov. 5 event will feature two in-depth educational sessions on the following topics (membership sign-up will be available on site—$20 gets a membership that will be good through 2009):
Radio Promotion 101 will be hosted by Herb Ivy, program director and operations manager for WCYY and WBLM, and feature Pete Kilpatrick, a local musician with four full-length albums released; Ben Briggs and Toby McAllister, both members of Sparks the Rescue, Double Blind Records recording artists with just shy of a million plays on Myspace; Mark Curdo, host of WCYY’s “Spinout” and head of Labor Day Records; and Jan Wilkinson, music director for WMPG and host of WMPG’s live-music show “Local Motives.”
The panel will discuss ways to get music heard on the radio, how radio hosts think you should communicate with them, and what these musicians have found to be successful in utilizing radio to support their new albums and touring activities.
Internet Marketing 101 will be run by Pat May, PMF president and Northeast agent for Skyline Music booking agency, who works with dozens of bands, helping them to promote their shows and successfully attract fans. He will be joined by Samuel Cousins, a search engine optimization expert and someone who’s created a number of Wiki’s, Facebook and Myspace pages; and Kris Currier, webmaster for Citadel Broadcasting in Portland, in charge on online marketing for WCYY and WBLM, and who helped design local web site guidelines for the entire Citadel corporation.
The panel will discuss the ABCs of creating a web presence, with strategies for taking advantage of the exploding number of social networking sites and music blogs, as well as using Google and other search engines to increase visibility.
In-depth sessions will be followed by a Q&A session, and all panelists will be available after the event for further discussion.
Further open introductory open seminars and in-depth, members-only sessions will follow in Jan./Feb. of 2009.
For more information, email info@portlandmusicfoundation.org.
