Convention to bring online sessions, new opportunities

As the CBI Board of Directors works to curate the first ever Virtual National Student Electronic Media Convention, I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with many station advisers during this process. The excellent feedback provided has directly contributed to our goals when developing the 2020 NSEMC. However, I’m sure that many students of our member stations are in the dark and uncertain about what this year’s convention will look like.

Unlike previous iterations of NSEMC, we no longer have the in-person camaraderie and cityscape excitement to rely upon as incentive for participating in the convention. Of course, those with interests in honing their craft or pursuing careers in broadcasting look forward to our many informative sessions, but even the most dedicated students will certainly miss the atmosphere of past years. The board and I are looking forward to October and the culmination of many months of planning, through which we have attempted to meet the needs of our student population as much as possible. While station advisers worry about budgeting and educational aspects, we have also identified engagement as a core barrier to interest in the convention. It is my hope that this letter will serve the purpose of answering some questions students may have.

This year will certainly be different from our usual convention structure. We believe that using Attendify’s digital convention platform will create a technologically seamless environment for this flagship event. To further ease the inevitable kinks, we intend to host a software demo in anticipation of the convention. Attendance at this webinar is highly encouraged. Prior conventions had a number of sessions running concurrently and throughout the day and while that will be still happening, we’ve reduced our hours from noon until 7 p.m. with breaks in between every presentation to accommodate class and work schedules.

Furthermore, we’ve attempted to handpick our most popular sessions to continue this year as well as develop new sessions hosted by industry professionals from all over the country. I can’t give away all our surprises just yet but you can expect representatives from Disney+, iHeartRadio, HBO Max, Westwood One Sports and College Radio Day just to name a few. Furthermore, we still plan on presenting the NSEMC Awards Ceremony live (potentially with a special guest) and hosting a modified version of the Swag Swap.

Not all of our presentations have been curated though, and we are proud to report that we’ve received a multitude of session proposals to schedule
and coordinate.

We hope that the convention is both satisfactory and exciting to students and professionals alike. I personally look forward to meeting with you all virtually and learning from each other just as we always have.

Cheers, Laura Mooney (they/them), CBI Student Representative