For three years now Jason Moon Wilkins and his crew have been putting on a festival in Nashville, appropriately called Next Big Nashville. It began as a way to shed light on performing artists who are members of genres which fall outside of country music; genres which many people living outside of Nashville are not aware exist in Music City.

Now, NBN has grown into a full blown music festival. Each year the festival has gotten a bit bigger than the last, and this year it is promising to be the biggest it’s ever been. There are scheduled many daytime conference activities, discussion panels, music industry parties, film events, block parties, VIP parties, afterparties and of course, MUSIC!

I don’t need to explain to you how important of an investment this is for your music career. If you are looking to get your start as a record producer, engineer, artist manager, A&R guy, musician or whatever else, you need to show up at Next Big Nashville. With all the extra events planned this year, the opportunity to network in the industry is bigger than ever. You will be rubbing elbows with some of the industry’s most legendary people. Even if you live hundreds of miles away from Nashville, it’s worth the trip. Nashville is an extremely unique place for music, and you will be surprised at the people who are hanging around this tight-knit music community.

So don’t miss this opportunity to jump-start your career. For $100 you can pick up a VIP Badge, which will snag you access to pretty much anything and everything that is going on at NBN, as well as some discounts from certain retail partners. You will also get free subscriptions to Paste and American Songwriter magazines. Trust me, the return on that investment is ten-fold. It’s rare to find a conference/expo which is that cheap in any industry.

However, if $100 is still too much, you can grab a wristband for $35, which will get you access to all the showcases and some of the discounts, subscriptions, etc. Take a look at nextbignashville.net for all the details.

Finally, while your at Next Big Nashville, swing by The Mercy Lounge on September 11th, and check out Mother/Father-a band I’ve been doing some work with for the last 3 or 4 months. They are playing the SESAC showcase at 11pm Central.