Over 30 schools and 200 students from around the country gathered in Pacific's Faye Spanos Concert Hall to attend the 2006 MEIEA/MEISA conference. MEIEA (Music and Entertainment Industry Educators Association) and MEISA (Music and Entertainment Industry Students Association) are both national associations whose main goal is to bring prepare the students for work in the music industry. The conference is a networking and educational experience geared toward the students in the music management and arts and entertainment management majors here at Pacific and similar programs at other schools.

The first day of the conference included a welcome address from Pacific president Donald DeRosa. The day was full of educational talks from leaders in the music industry, including Leonard Richardson, vice president of WB music and Pacific graduate. Leonard taught the conference attendees how the WB uses music to promote their shows and the artists who are featured.

The main customers using the services of the WB are indie label bands. Most of these bands cannot afford the fee involved in getting a spot on one of these shows, but the mid-level indie bands are a major part of WB shows because these bands have the ability to pay the fee to get their music heard on national television.

A panel of digital media specialists followed Leonard's talk. The topic of the talk was to get people thinking about how the digital world is changing the music industry and where the industry is heading. "Nothing is settled… if you think you know where the industry is heading you are kidding yourself" exclaimed Joy Frank of Yahoo! Music.

The panel made a few really good points about what digital media does for the music industry, including the shift from music "shows" to music "artists." Jay Frank also commented on the issue of piracy, saying "I don't blame you for downloading on p2p services… Because it is so easy to steal, artists can no longer have lag time" between recording and releasing an album. The night was capped off by an open mic night at Java Aroma and music jeopardy and graffiti party at the Radisson Hotel.

The capstone speaker for the event was Jacob Slichter, drummer for Semisonic. Slichter explained all of the ins and outs of working as an artist in the music industry and what problems artists have. Jacob explained, "The way you get a record deal is to play over 100 shows."

Slichter also went into the personal finances of Semisonic and how these arrangements alleviated some of the financial pressure that bands feel. Semisonic had an arrangement where all of the royalties were shared equally among the band members, when this money is usually allotted to the songwriter.

The lead singer is usually the main songwriter in bands and this was no exception for Semisonic. The trade-off for these shared royalties is that the lead singer wanted to be the "leader" of the band. He explained how compromises like this are not usually the case with inflamed egos that usually come with musicians.

            The MEIEA/MEISA conference brought national recognition to Pacific's music management program. It also brought industry leaders to campus so students could learn, network and find internships.
 

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