Trenten Derryberry

A Marketing Student's Perspective on NAMPC

Posted by Trenten Derryberry, Nov 15, 2012 1 comment


Trenten Derryberry

Trenten Derryberry

This was my first time attending not only the National Arts Marketing Project Conference (NAMPC), but also any conference. I am very happy to conclude that my experience was amazing and I would recommend this to anyone that is in any marketing field (and also if you are a student)!

I was asked to write this post-NAMPC piece to deliver a student perspective on the conference…here it goes!

Engagement, Mission, Alive, Active, Participatory, Stickiness, Contextualization, Spry, and Pray...all the words that come to my mind when I think of this past weekend (the list is endless!).

As a student, I came to NAMPC to primarily explore and listen to some of the TOP professionals in the marketing industry. What I received was something I wasn’t ready for.

Presenters sprawled from all areas of business (banks, agencies, venues, organizations, institutions)—both in and out of the confides of the performing arts, which I felt was an awesome exposure and a true springboard for discussions within the sessions.

Like I said earlier one of the reasons why I decided to attend was to listen and expand my critical thinking in an industry that I’m still learning about, that quickly changed to networking and participating within the sessions—I thought ‘when would be the next time I would be able to ask an audience engaging question directly to Alan Brown?’ So I did.

As a student, I can safely say that the number one mission is to learn in an exciting and new engaging way about things that I care about…or things that pertain to my specific major. In other words…I want to take classes that will advance my knowledge and confidence within my area of study.

At NAMPC, I was able to fully emerse myself in choosing what I wanted to learn and to meet who I wanted to meet. I chose sessions that linked directly with what I specifically wanted to engage in: finding new income streams for nonprofits, curating the arts experience, discounting, businesses partnering with the arts, audience engagement, stickiness, re-branding, and branding a brand from the start.

On top of those sessions I also heard from keynote speakers such as Eric Ryan (The Method Method), Nina Simon (The Participatory Museum), and Rohit Bhargava (Likeonomics). All of these sessions and keynotes were all a respectful revitalization and reassurement that I am in the right field.

I took away from the weekend a plethora of notes, business cards, confidence, and even a few summer internship offers.

I strongly urge undergrad students to attend next year. Coming into this conference I had four internships under my belt and I felt prepared enough for this to be a refresher…but I walked away with more knowledge from these four days than I have obtained in the four multi-month internships that I have previously done.

Undergrad students…save the date. NAMPC 2013: November 8–11 in Portland, OR!

1 responses for A Marketing Student's Perspective on NAMPC

Comments

November 15, 2012 at 7:41 pm

As an arts management student at American University, I was eager to attend this conference. Unfortunately, it did not work out for me this year, but I am determined to make it sometime in the near future. Thank you for this insightful, relevant post for anyone considering the NAMPC conference.

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