Peak Summit founder helps other top music events
Name: Myron Koch.
Age: 35.
Title: Musician and event manager in Louisville.
Company: Peak Summit (founder), member of the band Paradigm and manager of other festivals including Abbey Road on the River and the National Jug Band Jubilee.
Online: www.thepeaksummit.com, www.paradigmgroove.com and www.myronkoch.com
Phone: (502) 599-7636.
Education: Male High School; B.A. in writing, University of Kentucky .
My job is: “Mostly project-based, and revolves around performances and event organization. I have a cache of checklists. … So when I get up in the morning, I make coffee, consult my lists, decide which project needs attention immediately and get to work. Sometimes it’s phone calls, graphic design or other grunt work. Sometimes it’s practicing saxophone or Warr Guitar .”
Variables: “It varies greatly day-by-day – and during festival season, minute-by-minute. Since everyone in the entertainment industry seems to operate on a completely variable schedule, I have to work pretty much 24 hours a day – which is tremendously easier since I got an iPhone.”
What I love the most: “About these jobs is that I get to work with such imaginative minds to physically connect society through performance. People need togetherness and I – and everyone else in this business – get to make that a reality. It’s an amazing feeling to see an event in progress that I’ve worked on. And performing gives me that feeling times ten.”
Performance side: “I joined (the band) Paradigm after booking them into a club I was working with. … I jokingly told them that if their saxophonist left, I’d love to audition. Then he left. … A year later, we got signed to Ropeadope Records. … Our music is fun to play and listen to and I’m very happy to be a part of such a solid group.”
The one thing I can’t live without: “Meditation. It’s sometimes a challenge to stay focused and taking time to clear my heart and mind helps the important stuff to surface.”
People are surprised when: “I mention both sides of my business with equal emphasis. … Artistry and business sense aren’t always congruent qualities. I try to do both simultaneously and that doesn’t compute with many folks. Performing and promoting are symbiotic. With me, though, performance wins my attention over promotions; so I define myself as a performer first, promoter second.”
In search of the mystic: “At one point I wanted to be a DJ and I just kind of gave up on that because I found out that you couldn’t play anything that you wanted. That demystified it for me. … I went to U K as an English writing major and worked on the student paper. … I wanted to be a journalist for a while until I found out that there were assignments.”
I got started: “I’ve played sax since I was a kid and slid into promotions sideways through playing studio and live sessions with over 50 bands. … I absorbed processes at large events that I played and after a while decided to try one on my own.”
Trial and error: “My first festival was in 2000 at the Iroquois Amphitheater. From that production, I learned what could go wrong. Rain was one. … (Another was) the whole parking lot was rented out for another event, so we wouldn’t have access to it. As a result, we had a total of eight paying customers.”
To the Summit: “From that experience came the mostly indoor, multivenue concept of The Peak Summit. … (It) is ‘spearheaded’ by me at this point, but it has a steering committee of musicians throwing input into the mix. The musicians’ input is largely what made the Peak Summit fun and effective. The crew has (also) been awesome and many of them have participated for years.”
Total package: “What I didn’t realize at the beginning of this trip was that folks made entire careers on small elements of event management, such as graphic design, booking, staffing, logistics – which are all marketable skills. … That’s how I got started, just marketing little pieces of what I do for the Summit. … That’s how I have been fortunate enough to work with Abbey Road on the River, the Jug Band Jubilee. … This last year I’ve starting setting up the campground and after party for the Forecastle Festival.”
In the works: “Everything’s growing so fast, it makes me feel like we’re doing something right! … (I’m working on) another 10-stage Peak Summit in St. Matthews in the spring, a summer concert series at the UofL planetarium, a city-wide Peak Summit next fall (working with Habitat for Humanity), more touring with Paradigm and on Warr Guitar.”
The best advice anyone ever gave me about work: “Don’t be discouraged. If you have a clear vision, pursue it, whatever it is. You can never please everyone, so you may as well please yourself; if you don’t, you’ll never be pleased. Here’s a quote a friend gave me: ‘The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.'”
– Paula Burba
Want to suggest someone to profile in this column? E-mail businessnews@courier-journal.com.
Courier – Journal – Louisville, Ky.
| Author: | Burba, Paula |
| Date: | Nov 10, 2008 |
| Start Page: | D.3 |
| Section: | Business |