Maestro Labors of Love: Valerie White
Opus values work-life balance, and celebrates the amazing and creative passion projects that our employees maintain outside of work. In this series, we’ll be highlighting Maestro side hustles.
Name: Valerie White
Title: Event Manager, Operations
Side Hustle: Public Relations Liaison, Dance Music Northwest
What is Dance Music Northwest?
Dance Music Northwest is the NW region’s largest EDM magazine and nightlife website. We connect fans to dance music, EDM news & trends, as well as local NW events. As the PR Liaison, it’s my responsibility to manage press relations in addition to building and maintain relationships with vendors, artist management, and organizations.
How did you get into your side hustle?
Oddly enough, I was into punk music for a long time. Years ago, there were punk bands that had started integrating electronic music the music they produced. Seeing those artists transforming into new genres got me interested in exploring other electronic artists.
About 5 years ago, I was looking for something to do with my spare time when I was living in Portland and doing a different line of work. I had found DMNW and reached out to them directly; the team was looking for someone to help with marketing and media relations. Everyone at Dance Music NW is a volunteer, and we all do it for the same reason: we love the music! It allows us to attend music festivals and live performances and even meet and/or interview artists (including Martin Garrix and Tiesto!). I’ve become super close with the Dance Music NW team, and they heavily influenced my move to Seattle.
How does your experience at Opus inform your side hustle?
I think the two integrate well with one another as I’ve learned to build and maintain client/vendor relationships within Opus, and it in turn helps me communicate with artist management, music event organizations, etc. It has also helped me from a leadership & organization perspective; both positions require a lot of multi-tasking, making the right connections, being client-facing, and being communicative.
Both experiences have greatly molded me into who I am both at work and outside of work.
How can we learn more?
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