We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Miranda Embry. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Miranda below.
Miranda, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?
This company was started for one reason only:
…because music is life…
Our mission is to help grow the independent music scene… We do this by working with musicians on their road to success through booking them shows, putting on concerts, promoting bands; we also help venues with booking so they stay stacked with talent and we offer talent buyer/booking services for all kinds of events both locally and nationally.
In addition to LS Music Promotions we are in the process of getting a non-profit going called “Music Pharm” which focuses on using music as therapy. Pharm being a play on music as medicine…
Between the work we do through LS and what we are trying to achieve with Music Pharm; our mission to help grow the independent music scene is happening!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
As a company, we offer booking services of all kinds: events, venues, concerts, bands/artists and tours. One of our highlight achievements is that we are currently booking for Gettysburg Bike Week, an event that has 25k+ people in attendance annually and have provided a lineup we are quite proud of for 2024! We are currently in talks with other music festivals for booking and are working with several artists/bands on their individual booking for shows and tour routing. We are also connecting with new venues to help them stay booked with talent.
One thing that sets us apart is we believe every artist should be paid, and paid fairly, for their craft. We do not believe in pay to play and do everything we can to ensure artists get good pay for the shows we book or the ones we put on. Too many promoters are money focused rather than community and art focused. Additionally since our background is music, becoming promoters/bookers just came naturally to us. Justin was in a successful hardcore band in the 2000s and I (Miranda) was a small time promoter in Atlanta at the same time. We grew up, got married, had kids and lived the 9-5 life and now that our kids are older, LSMP was a way for us to get back to our roots and reconnect with our love of live music.
Plain and simple we love music and want to help grow the live music scene however we can. We search for unknown or little known artists and try to help them grow through promotion, we plan shows where smaller starting out or deserving bands have a shot to play with well known and established bands and we try and share about what the bands we work with have going on via social often. We have developed a great reputation since we started and its based upon the respect we have for the artists and those sharing in the mission of growing live music. Your next favorite band is someone you’ve probably never heard of and we hope to shine the light on them so you can!
How’d you meet your business partner?
Justin and I met when we were 18 at a concert festival in Illinois. He was from KY and I was from GA. It was love at first sight…while we only made it a year long distance, we reconnected 7 years later on MySpace and were back together within a month and married less than a year later!
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
Our first major show as a company was a total monetary loss…we were out several grand when it was all said and done. It was a major financial blow to us, but the connections we made, the joy that we brought and the fun we had made us keep going. In fact, we have lost on several events- but we haven’t given up yet. As a promoter you take on the financial risk of recouping your expenses through ticket sales and if not enough people show up to cover the band pay, advertising, venue fees, etc. it can result in a loss. Despite the losses, there has always been gains of other kinds to even things out and keep us going. Whether it is the relationships with artists we built, the gratitude of the fans, the industry connections made or the joy it brought us individually- we have yet to call it quits and I do not see that happening anytime in our future.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lsmusicpromotions.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lsmusicpromo/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lsmusicpromo/
- Other: https://www.musicpharm.org/ our non-profit website