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How To Pick A Voice Over Conference To Attend

There’s no shortage of options when it comes to selecting a voice over conference to attend. So how do you decide when you don’t have the ability to attend them all?

Here’s a few tips.

Voice Over Conference Options

VO Atlanta – voatlanta.me

WoVOCon – world-voices.org

Mid-Atlantic Voice Over Conference midatlanticvo.com

That’s Voiceover – thatsvoiceover.com

VO Mastery – vomastery.com

MidWest Voice Over Conference – midwestvoiceoverconference.com

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5 Takeaways From VO Mastery 2015

It doesn’t take much convincing to get a Canadian to travel to Florida in November. In fact, all it took was a single email from Randy Thomas inviting me to her VO Mastery Summit. When it’s snowing at home, who wouldn’t want to spend a weekend in Ft Myers?!

Saturday was packed full of sessions with some of the best coaches, talent and mentors our industry has to offer. With my Macbook in hand, I was busy typing all kinds of notes and making a list of action items. From all of those notes, I wanted to share a few of the key takeaways from the event, for those of you unable to attend.

5 Takeaways From VO Mastery 2015

Spelling Matters: Doug Turkel is a branding genius, and I was thrilled to spend some time listening to him share. One of my best takeaways from the event came from him. Doug has branded himself as the unnouncer (which is brilliant), but he noted it’s easily mispronounced or misspelled. Many think it’s unannouncer. For that reason, he registered the .com’s for both.

My name is Marc. With a “c.” It’s been spelled wrong since my birth. As Doug was speaking, I jumped online, registered markscottvoiceover.com and set it up to forward to my main site.

Whose Clients?: One of the things the CEO of a certain P2P site said in a recent interview that offended and upset a lot of talent was that the clients on their site belonged to the site; despite the fact we (as the talent) are providing all the work. We believe they are our clients!

J Michael Collins is, perhaps, the foremost expert when it comes to casting sites, and he boldly proclaimed from the stage that despite what any CEO may say, they are indeed our clients!

Positively Awesome: Don Abbott started off the event on Saturday morning. What a fantastic way to launch into the day. Don’s presentation was simply awesome, and his energy was infectious. By the end, every person in the room was smiling and feeling great… even if it was really early for some of us! 😉

One thing he said that stuck was this, “The day you automatically think, act and speak positively, you will be a positive person. From that day forward, nothing will be impossible!” Is that powerful stuff or what?!

Staggering Stats: During a session on marketing Jonathan Tilley tossed out a factoid that caused my jaw to hit the floor. If you’re struggling to put together a website, or have just thrown together some free or cheap placeholder, this stat might very well cause you to re-evaluate your decision.

46% of people say a website design is the deciding factor for them on a persons credibility. I guess it all goes back to the timeless saying, you never get a second chance to make a first impression!

Tease Please: Peter Rofé did a session titled, “Mastering the Basics: Commercial and Character Acting for Animation.” It was a great session filled with a lot of great info and some of the best voice over demos I’ve ever heard! While I could probably write an entire blog just from the notes I wrote during his session, there’s one thing he said that really stuck out.

While speaking of demos he encouraged us to showcase just enough to make them [client] want to call you. Teasers. Don’t give it all away. I’ve listened to demos that are too long, and I’ve listened to demos that definitely give it all away. Working with a professional producer is going to help you create the perfect tease that will make them [clients] want to call!

vo-mastery-coaches
VO Mastery Summit Coaches and Mentors

VO Mastery Summit 2016?

Randy Thomas and her team really did do a great job putting together the Summit. I’d also like to give a special mention to Chovitta Ariza. If you don’t think it’s possible to be in multiple places at the same time, clearly you’ve never watched Chovitta do her magic at an event. She was everywhere, all the time! Making sure things were running smoothly and everyone had everything they needed.

The dates for next years VO Mastery Summit have already been announced. If you were thinking about attending this year and didn’t, perhaps you’ll want to look ahead to next year, November 4-6, 2016.

Thanks for sharing this post from Marc Scott's Voice Over Blog.