The working motto for Lauren Crew '16 is simple: fit all you can into your day and don't screw anything up.
Crew handles logistics and marketing for Sean Moeller, owner/operator of the hip production company Moeller Nights and the booking manager for the popular Codfish Hollow Barnstormers shows in Maquoketa, Iowa.
Crew's typical day means getting the word out about the next show via various social media channels, booking travel and lodging arrangements for visiting bands, then going to her second job coaching elementary school cheerleaders. On show nights, her workday ends in the early-morning hours of the next day, albeit with the benefit of enjoying some cutting edge music.
Crew makes it all happen pretty smoothly, and, most days, her job doesn't feel like a job at all.
She got here with a little help from some SAU connections along the way.
As a multimedia journalism major, Crew was pointed toward an internship at River Music Experience by Communication Professor Alan Sivell (Connection 1). There, she worked with fellow Communications alum Alex Burkamper '12, RME's marketing director (Connection 2).
"I wouldn't be where I am without the RME internship," Crew said.
As an SAU senior, Crew went to work for the Downtown Davenport Partnership, which is where Connection 3 comes in. Kyle Carter '04 is executive director of the Partnership and has been influential in growing the downtown scene. That scene now includes several Moeller Nights projects, including annual music festivals Alternating Currents and GAS Feed & Seed.
It was through the Partnership-where Carter employs several other SAU alums (Connections 4-8)-that Crew met Moeller, a former journalist and musician with an entrepreneurial streak.
Years earlier, Moeller launched the music streaming website Daytrotter, Inc., and built it into a QC-based worldwide sensation. Moeller had recently moved on to a next chapter, as a partner in the Triple Crown Whiskey Bar and Raccoon Motel, a chic little downtown joint with a good whiskey to sample and steady menu of live music performances booked through Moeller Nights.
A year later, Crew finds herself managing hospitality and logistics for some of the hottest up-and-coming music acts in the country. They come for the quirky, hipster vibe of Davenport, and because Moeller has an uncanny way of recognizing on-the-horizon talent and has a phone filled with the names of previously recorded up-and-came artists like Cory Chisel, Nathaniel Rateliff and Marcus Mumford to prove it.
"He is superhuman," Crew said. "He knows when something's going to work."
That includes hiring the well-connected Lauren Crew.
– Robin Ruetenik '15 MOL
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