Through the Eyes of a Hangout Music Festival Intern

 - Marty Hubbard

My name is Marty Hubbard and I'm a Senior out of Chelsea, MI majoring in Music and minoring in Entrepreneurship, Sales, and Performing Arts Management. My love of music and charity is what attracted me to MUSIC Matters which I joined sophomore year on the Talent & Concert Committee. In my Sophomore and Junior years I was a part of the A&R and Production teams, and will serve as the Head of Concert Operations and Advancement in the upcoming year. I'm very passionate about the ways music can better a community and feels fortunate to be a part of such an awesome team at MM. 

This summer I interned at Hangout Music Festival in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Since its inception the festival has grown from attracting 15,000 people per day in 2010 to 40,000 per day in 2017. In 2015, they partnered with AEG Goldenvoice and in 2016 was nominated for Major Festival of the year by Pollstar.

I, along with 25 other interns, spent 2 weeks leading up to and during the show working with various departments to help setup and run the event. During the festival I worked with the Sponsorship department to help manage the sponsor activations and serve as a liaison for the festival to companies including Corona, Monster, Malibu, Coke, Teva, and Harley among others. Although I worked mostly with the Sponsorship team, I also gained hands-on experience with the VIP, Site Operations, Artist Hospitality, and Media departments. 

 

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Despite the experience and insights I gained, I found the most rewarding part to be the connections I made. There are some truly amazing people in the festival world and being surrounded by a team of others who are just as passionate about music as you are is an inspiring thing.

There is no doubt the experiences and relationships I've made in MM have a direct correlation to the opportunities I’ve had outside of UoM. For example, I coincidentally ran into one of the speakers for a MM curriculum during Lost Kings set, who coincidentally played at SpringFest 2018. 

This summer I will also intern with Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival and Live Nation Global Touring. I'm very thankful for everyone at MM and am extremely excited to hit next year running! (P.S. Rumor has it you can spot me as the festival fairy on Hangout's Day 3 Instagram story)