LAUNCH brings together two aspects of the music industry for one exciting weekend in beautiful historic Downtown Lancaster, PA for the seventh straight year. The Festival showcases nearly 200 artists from all over the country, representing a variety musical styles – from rock to folk, from pop to punk, from country to funk all performing in a three block radius for fans during one electric weekend. Today, we discussed the conference with creator & founder Jeremy Weiss.

What sparked the idea for the Launch Music Conference?

I had a co-creator for the first five years and we met at a few small conferences where we were panelists. We were really impressed with some of them and were talking about all the different things that really made it special. The developing artists, their enthusiasm, the opportunities they were given, hooking with some colleagues, meeting new people as a participant in the conference – comparing notes after having been to South by Southwest after a few decades a few times, CMJ, etc. and we started talking about my town of Lancaster. So there was a site visit, checked it out, saw that there were over 80 independent art galleries, tons of restaurants, music venues – everything was five to seven minute walk. Lancaster has a really good geographic advantage. We have gotten nearly every premier act from every genre of music because of our positioning between major markets like Phily, DC, Boston, New York, Baltimre. So it seemed like the right thing to do. Went to mayor’s office and they were really into it. We rented a facility and went for it.

How many artists are expected to attend?

We have hundreds and hundreds that submitted to perform. We can’t place them all obviously but we will have 184 unique performances with over 175 artists performing. What we do that I am pretty sure is the only festival of its size in the country that does so is anyone who submits is granted a badge to attend the full conference portion and most of the festival for free. That is due to a little bit of altruism and knowing that artists need advice – they are typically broke. We want to give them every opportunity to meet and communicate with our panelists and professionals. We want them to network with each other and maybe learn a few things. As long as we can keep the support from the sponsors in the community up we will be able to do that moving forward. We will probably have over three hundred artists attending.

What is the farthest an artist had to travel to perform?

Over the years we have had half a dozen performers from Japan, the Caribbean, as far south as Texas, Canada, Los Angeles, etc. Really there has been no limitation from where people come from or how far they travel.

Who are some of the featured artists this year?

This year we discovered that the rock metal band ATREYU were coming out of hiatus. They had not done any East Coast performances for over four years. We snagged them. In the Americana genre we have an emerging artist from Philadelphia, Mo Lowda and the Humble. We also have Bad Fish performing, and also Hed PE and Alien Ant Farm. We hope you can see that we are spreading it around – metal, punk, rock, Americana, folk, Indi, Alternative. We really seek to be a genreless conference.

How can Launch help an artists career?

This is important to me and I hope that we always achieve this goal – to achieve tangible results. Sometimes an artists has lofty expectations . More often than not this is common. People want to be on the cover of magazines. I say be careful to look at your accomplishments – are sales growing, have socials doubled, done more touring, are your crowds are growing – than you are accomplishing something. So having said that, we choose people out of our peer group to be educators, panel participants, who are very active in the music industry, it is their full time gig and are in a position to help and who are receptive to getting their mind blown. This is an action based conference. The folks who come have to know they have to have a willingness to be approached and to have their mind blown. If they are truly impressed, we are not adverse to working with that person. The artists can also meet other artists where they can build relationships, show trade, tour together. There is a myriad of indie record people, there are tons of promoters who are attending. Many of our artists have been invited back to the area venues that they played at LAUNCH and that’s something I am very proud of. Compared to other conferences the rates are very reasonable.

How do you keep your rates so low?

It is something I am desperate to hang on to. I think through a lot of creative financing, in-kind trading, sponsorships. I am just trying to compile on my resources and put it together to keep rates down. That speaks to the thing I brought up earlier – artists are not made up of money. It is extremely important to me that the rates are not prohibitive to get in. Having said that it also applies to the fan. I have been a concert promoter for 28 years and I am constantly referring what will the market bear.

How did you promote the conference to the artists and the industry?

I believe in partnerships. For example, through Substream Magazine. There is a lot of in-kind trading. When you can earn someone’s respect or favor for the product that you have created, I think you will find it to be a lot easier. We didn’t go out with the ambition that within year three we were going to have three 300K sponsorships and we are going to blow this out. It is a much more organic approach – which speaks to my indie roots. You build a product, you invite people to see it, they like it. That is my goal across all my business models as opposed to hot selling, cold selling.

Has there been a specific sponsor or trade that you partnered with to help spread the word?

I would definitely say Catalyst Publicity in Florida. We invited them up as panelists last year and they liked the event and approached us with an in-kind relationship. They have done a phenomenal job with press releases in spreading the word. They have been running our social media and really organizing our message making sure that it is well timed, well written and organized. We are not the best publicist. For years we have been doing this on our own with four people. It is really nice to see they wanted to be a part of this. I think that when you have a few years under your belt, you have 1,200 acts that have been performed, I still fervently believe in word of mouth and allowing people to come to their own conclusion. We survey heavily afterwards and make adjustments. We have not had to make too many.

Tell me about your background.

I was 15 years old and I answered a classified ad in an old punk rock magazine called Maximum Rock and Roll. I booked a bunch of shows in my hometown – fire hall. Then I walked into the Chameleon Club and asked the owner if I could do a show and much to my absolute shock he said Yes. I was bitten by the bug and I started doing concerts. I had a record label that I still have today called CI records. I was promoting a lot of artists through that and it began as a local thing and then I released national and international acts through that. Everything I do is inter-related. I like relationships, I like people, I am a public kind of person. I have produced over 1,300 concerts since 1987. I just kept challenging myself to bigger things. I operate and own an all ages venue in Harrisburg, Pa. I still book at the Chameleon Club. I am happy to do a show for a great band if there happens to be 100 people there or 2,000 people.

What is your practical advice for the working artist?

I think when you are building a team you are not looking to put a name in the slot – for example, John Smith, now I have a manager, Deborah Johnson, now I have a publicist. You need to be prepared to do many of these things on your own and figure out what is working for you. When the time comes that you need one of those aforementioned needs you will know it, but you cannot force it. Today’s industry is much different than before. There is not an opportunity to buy success like there had been before when I was growing up enforcing people to listen to your song on the radio. You really need to have a sharp business acumen behind your passion and this is true of all art forms and certainly true of music. You need to be involved in your branding, design, your performance and the finances of your business. Business sounds like such dispassionate word but if it empowers you to fulfill your artistic goals, it is worth learning about. I think that is why conferences are important. You also need to know when to let go. So if you are the guy in the band that does things a certain way, and you have enlisted the help of a team member, manager, A&R guy, publicist, etc. you need to know it is time to focus on your craft. You have gotten it this far, we are going to help you go further. You have to work hard the entire time. I’m friendly with bands that many of the younger folks would describe as huge. I cannot express to them enough how detailed oriented they are, how determined they are, how they never take anything for granted down to the last ticket sold to one of their shows.

Has the new industry created new jobs?

Without a doubt. We created a subject matter around this at Launch this year. I think many of us who we thought were great at one thing, and could sustain our business at doing that one thing, found out that that is not really the case anymore with changing technologies, changing delivery systems. You have to be much broader in what you are willing to do. It has changed. I find that there is a real mixing in people’s roles. I think we all found out that you had to be a jack of all trades and learn a few more things. You might be managing the band, creating new opportunities, managing sponsorships, creating new merchandise, ordering and shipping it, and maybe even tour managing and selling the merchandise. I just described there five different roles if you went back ten years ago. That is the new industry.

What are some of your new favorite artists?

I have to say if I had to go huge, the greatest artist of our time is Bruno Mars. I find that his blending of any genres dating back to the fifties all the way up to modern R&B, soul, a little bit of hip-hop and rock. I think he is the total package. I have actually used him as an example to some of my acts – look at the work ethic, the total package of performance, of songwriting, execution, branding and the broadness of his genre reach. I love a lot of indie music. I just signed a band out of New York called Face the King and they more of a modern rock indie band. I also like a lot of really heavy music. So I also manage and release records by heavier style melodic hard core bands . There is a band called One Year Later that I think is fantastic. Another band is Carousel Kings. We just got them on the Warp Tour. I really do have a vast interest in music and I know a lot of people say that. I listen to music eight to nine hours a day and wouldn’t have it any other way. When I back an artist it is because I love them. I love them like a I like any humungous act.