If you’ve never had the chance to go to NAMM, you can either count yourself lucky or unlucky! I liken it to a Saturday before Christmas working in the guitar store I used to work in, back in London. Loud music, everyone playing a different song on a different instrument. People visiting are overwhelmed and in awe and people working there are happy but exhausted!

NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) is held every January in Anaheim, California. Distributors and fans come from all corners of the globe to attend. This year I didn’t go except for to take part in a soundgirls.org event (more on that later). Sometimes I feel bad for not going, when it’s on my doorstep, but this year I couldn’t get away to enjoy this spectacle.

I did however find time to attend the Soundgirls mentoring event for Live Event Production. It’s always great to participate in these events, to see and feel the energy and passion of the new crop of women in music. If events like this existed when I was younger, I for sure would have been able to enter the industry a lot sooner and a lot younger than I did. It took until I was maybe 28 years old before I managed to start touring. That’s definitely a few good years lost, knowing that some people start straight out of school. I don’t think it matters though, as I had a different skill set and mind set by the time I reached 28, that I wouldn’t have had at 18. You should check out the events page over at Soundgirls.org to see their upcoming events. For example they have Business Basics for the Entertainment Industry. What a fantastic sounding course! Some of the topics covered will be:

• Resume writing
• Cleaning up your social media
• Networking tools
• Starting your own business
• What it means to be an independent contractor. We will cover new laws and long term planning like retirement
• Business 101-Budgeting, taxes, income statement, accounting software, contracts on the cheap,
• Negotiations, how to say yes/no and stand up for yourself 

If you’re able to go to this, you should! Not to mention its FREE!! This will give you so much invaluable information. If you’re trying to break into the world of touring, don’t forget to check out my book when it comes out soon, I talk about some of the topics above from a real world perspective. It’ll be released soon!