WAM Festival Speaker Profile: Sarah Chipman

Name: Sarah Chipman

Organisation and Position: Title Track - Managing Director

How did you first become involved in the music business? I was living in Hobart and doing a little bit of everything I could to help out local bands and festivals - selling merch, throwing events, promoting gigs, tour managing. I came to Brisbane to visit a friend and met with Stephen Green who offered me a job and three months later I sold all my things and made my way to Brisbane. I've been working with Stephen ever since.

What's your area of expertise and what experience do you have? I've been working in PR for three years now, working with bands/artists such as: Sticky Fingers, Half Moon Run, Tired Lion, MTNS, Philadelphia Grand Jury, The Trouble With Templeton, Abbe May, Cub Sport, The Love Junkies, The Growlers, etc. as well as A festival Called Panama and BIGSOUND.

What topics will you be mostly talking about at WAM? I'll be doing a PR master-class with a small group of people, which will be great to have some one on one time with people keen to learn about PR and the best ways to get their band or single or album out into the world. I'm also going to be asking some tough questions on a Digital panel and doing some other fun things throughout the week.

What do you hope to personally take away from the WA Music Conference and WAM Festival events? I hope to meet a lot of people I have worked with or spoken with over the years! I have had the pleasure of working with some amazing WA bands and artists and have a great connection with the WA music scene so it's going to be great to just be there and finally put some faces to some names. I'm also excited to hear some of the new emerging acts coming out of WA right now.

What's one question about the music industry you'd love to have the answer to? I don't like to go too far down that rabbit hole because it can be terrifying to start to think about all the things you don't know. But instead I always like to learn or take away something from every campaign and every situation I come across. It's important to know you'll never know everything, but what you know and what you learn is different to every other person.

One piece of advice to make it in the music biz? Trust your instincts, be creative, do it because you love it.