Charlie Greene
Grade: Senior
Major: Strategic Communications
KJHK Position: Live Music Coordinator
Dakota: Who are you?
Charlie: My name is Charlie Greene, I’m a senior studying Strategic Communications with a minor in business.
D: What do you do here at KJHK?
C: My position is live music coordinator. What that means is I’m responsible for the planning and logistics for smaller events such as Tunes @ Night to our larger concerts as in Denzel Curry this spring. Just handling all logistics, marketing, promotions that go along with the events.
D: What does a week-by-week look like for you? What challenges do you face?
C: The biggest hurdle week-by-week are the agents and their response times. They like to take their sweet time, so that hinders the decisions we can make on a week-by-week basis. It’s just making sure the communication is going well with the agents and keeping them up to date.
D: Do you have a staff or is it just you wrangling all this in?
C: I have a staff. I have 3 other great coordinators. 1 with KJHK and 2 with SUA. Under that we have a 7 person committee.
D: How do you get the artist for the show?
C: Yeah, how it typically works is we are allocated a certain amount of budget for talent fees. If we can we like to book the artist a semester in advance just because the talent fee may be a little cheaper if they haven’t blown up yet. If we know an artist is going to tour, and is somebody we want to bring in, it’s called routing, which is making them come through Lawrence on their way through. That’s how we pick artist.
D: What would you say the hardest part of your job is?
C: I’d say the hardest part would be the planning and logistics coming right up to the show. Not knowing how exactly it’s going to turn out until the actual show. I mean… It’s an amazing experience once the show actually comes because you get to see all the hard work myself, the coordinators and the committee has done. But, it’s also keeping in mind all of the small aspects leading up to the big spring concerts. It’s a lot of small pieces that we have to make sure we get right from reaching out to media outlets for promoting and to working with students around campus just to build awareness for the artist.
D: Having been to a few Tunes @ Nights myself, I can attest that I typically see you there. Is that where the stress ends? When you walk in and finally get to enjoy the concert or is there still stress or worry that something might go wrong.
C: Well once when we get to the show we just let the artist take over and let them give the experience. Everybody tends to lose the stress and just enjoys the music, maybe eat some food. I enjoy the events and it’s nice seeing all of the work come to fruition right at the show.
D: What artist has been your favorite that you played a part in bringing to Lawrence?
C: It would have my Sophomore year we brought in Alison Wonderland, who is a producer from Australia. She’s an amazing artist who is currently headlining large electric festivals. It was really cool to bring in those that are on the rise. It was great to see an early artist and see where they are now.
D: What else have you done with KJHK?
C: I’ve primarily stuck with the live music aspect. Last year I did a DJ shift, but primarily I’ve been with live music. It first started out as a fun thing, an interest, but during this position and being with live music for about 3 years, the interest grew into a passion and it’s something I would love to do once I leave school. The whole marketing, promotion, event planning for live events is really interesting and a lot of fun. It gives you the opportunity to come into a finished product once the show happens or a festival takes hold. I would love to stay in that realm.
D: What advice would you give to somebody trying to follow in your footsteps or even fill your shoes?
C: Keeping an open mind and time-management. For keeping an open mind, sometimes when we are looking at artists… Let’s say I’m planning a concert, and I like electronic music. I would want to sway my committee to pick an electronic artist, but it’s having the ability to pick the better artist for the campus. It’s about listening to what everybody else wants to see and hear opposed to what I want. And time-management is key just because there are a lot of moving pieces every week and being able to stay on top of responding to artists, agents or staying on top of emotions will lead to more successful events and less stress. This position shouldn’t be a stressful position. It’s a position one should want to do and like to do. KHJK gives you the ability to do that.