This year, I have attended a few awesome VO conferences (both in person and virtual) and am excited to go to so many more. They’ve all been terrific, and each one has a different feel and different learning opportunities and people to meet. And I have attended conferences or in areas that intersect with VO — audiodrama festivals, mystery writers conferences, fantasy cons, and more.
That’s a lot of conferences.
Sure, conference-attending can be overwhelming, tiring, time-consuming, and costly BUT the benefits so incredibly outweigh all that. I have a few guidelines to help you decide when it’s worth going and when you should stay home and focus on other elements of your business.
But what do you get from conferences exactly?
First, the obvious. You learn stuff!
That seems self-evident when the topic is new to you. But even if the topic centers on something you already know well, a fresh speaker prompts new ideas, insights, and greater mastery. You’ll also encounter as many different teaching styles as learning styles, and inevitably you’ll find a person or workshop format that resonates deeply for you.
I’ve found familiar topics completely enthralling when presented through a different lens. For example, often at VO conferences, there will be a workshop on Creating Characters, which may include character voices, understanding the connection between a description or drawing and your vocal representation, or character analysis in audiodramas and audiobooks.
But workshops on Creating Characters are also offered at writers’ conferences! What an incredible opportunity for voice actors to experience character creation from the inside out. Writers’ conferences also often offer workshops such as “Location as Character” which explore using the setting to move the plot and character actions. For an audiobook narrator, a workshop like that textures and develops our narration. For voice actors working in corporate narration, animation and more, such workshops deepen our sense of the impact of environment and its visual portrayal on the character and the story itself, which improves our performance.
Lastly, different conferences have different structures, tones and even overarching goals for attendees, and will showcase different presenters even when the topics are the same. For instance, sometimes the presenters will be rising powerhouse performers, other times they’ll be well established artists in the field.
Perhaps instead of voice talent, presenters will be casting directors, content creators, platform creators, producers, agents, directors, and so on. Some conferences work hard to have presenters from widely different personal and cultural backgrounds. Being in a physically different environment surrounded by people you wouldn’t see at another conference while being immersed in a different conference culture will impact you differently. You have a different lens, a different POV, literally as well as metaphorically (location as character is real!).
Don’t many folks go to make connections?
Yes! Meeting the presenters, networking with colleagues is all important, sure, but… As the incredible Chloe Summers once said in a trapeze workshop I was taking, “My goal is to make new friends.”
Making new friends is the most wonderful, satisfying thing. Friends are awesome! Friends are interesting! And funny! And brilliant!! And for me, centering the goal of meeting new people through a conference is way easier (and more fun) than trying to MAKE CONNECTIONS and NETWORK. I love hearing peoples’ stories, learning about their experiences, and being helpful whenever I can. Conference buddies also help you navigate the scene, and I meet people with whom a true friendship grows. We meet virtually for tea, support, and conversation.
Friends and conference buddies are also fountains of knowledge that we ourselves don’t possess. They deepen our learning experience of the speakers, panels, and workshops we attend because everyone processes information differently, and having the opportunity to chew over a class expands concept comprehension and highlights information we ourselves did not mentally underline.
So go. Maybe you can be a volunteer and attend at a discount, or apply for a Special Opportunity Stipend from your regional arts council, or perhaps your organization will cover some of the cost as professional development. And this year, many conferences offer a virtual ticket at a drastically reduced cost from the live attendee ticket (or perhaps the whole conference is virtual!).
And if I’m lucky, I’ll see you there!
