First and foremost, I want to thank the Wabash College Department of Economics, Wabash College Career Services, the many donors, and the Wabash family, who granted me the opportunity to perform research throughout my summer internship with Round Table Management. Without the help of my Wabash family, I’m not quite sure what my summer internship would have looked like otherwise. Lastly, I want to thank my family, friends, co-workers, and mentors who pushed me to work hard, focus on succeeding and strive for the best version of myself. Over the course of my summer, I researched 3 Contemporary Christian music groups/artists (We the Kingdom, Kari Jobe, Cody Carnes) and their social media engagement. I was intrigued to see if there was any correspondence with social media and global streams of those artists’ music. I conducted my research in Microsoft Excel and collected data from their respective social media accounts (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Tik Tok). I was also emailed a weekly report from Capitol Christian Music Group of the global streaming numbers. By the end of my data collection, I found this was true. With more engagement on social media, global streaming numbers continued to rise and even saw spikes in streaming numbers with weeks where artists engaged on social media more and had more follower increases. Seeing these trends firsthand was fantastic, and the opportunity to conduct my research courtesy of the Department of Economics at Wabash made it even more fulfilling. When I wasn’t digging into my Excel spreadsheet, I performed various intern tasks for Round Table Management. The first two weeks of my summer were filled with coffee runs, calendar management, shopping (groceries, supplies for the studio, coffee needs, etc.), organization at storage units, and merchandise inventory. I also had weekly meetings with different people in the music industry (tour managers, day-to-day managers, promoters, merchandisers, label managers, marketing directors, and event organizers). The meetings were great for me to hear from multiple perspectives of people who all work directly with a specific artist. I was thrown into the position of Assistant Tour Manager as a way to build my repertoire and learn more about what it takes to be a successful tour manager. I helped organize, coordinate, and pull the strings behind the curtain for Cody Carnes’ live album recording July 2-8. Many people don’t get to see all the hard work that goes into a live show, much less a live album recording, so getting to be a part of firsthand and have a role was terrific. At first, I was very nervous and apprehensive at the amount of responsibility and trust that was instilled in me, but once I realized that those, I was working with put trust in me because they believed in me, I knew I had to step up to the plate and hit the ball out of the park. The week went smoothly, and I got to be a part of something truly special!
