We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sara Shah. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sara below.

Hi Sara, thanks for joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

Working with and growing Live For Live Music over the years has presented unlimited opportunities for *cool* projects and collaborations, but the most meaningful occurred during the start of COVID. In a matter of days the entire music industry was decimated, with shows and festivals cancelled and artists/gig workers out of work for the foreseeable future. It was a devastating and confusing time, and we knew we had to use our platform to do something. Thus, our virtual festival series was born. In a matter of days we confirmed more than 60 artists from primarily across the jam/funk/bluegrass space to partake in Quarantine Comes Alive, a one-day marathon event benefiting a COVID relief fund. We had artists send us their sets recorded from home, and partnered with nugs to piece it all together. We also held exclusive interviews with artists throughout the event, conducted by Ari Fink (formerly SiriusXM). Fans were able to tune in by donating any amount, thus making it accessible and affordable for the audience while generating almost $200k for COVID relief. During a time that was so isolating for so many, it felt meaningful to be able to unite the community through music—there were even watch parties over Zoom!

We went on to produce three more virtual festivals, each addressing a timely cause: Justice Comes Alive during the Black Lives Matter movement to combat racial inequality, and Democracy Comes Alive and Georgia Comes Alive to support voter participation in partnership with HeadCount. Georgia Comes Alive occurred during such a heated time in our country that all of these higher level artists started reaching out to us to get involved, so suddenly I’m jumping online late at night to coordinate adding acts like the Foo Fighters to the lineup! It felt good to be helping with something that people felt so passionately about by giving them a platform for their voice to be heard.

Sara, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My journey with music began in college while attending Tulane in New Orleans. I was so fortunate to get exposed to such a vibrant and historically rich music scene, and began immersing myself in the city’s endless clubs, venues and festivals. From Tuesdays at the Maple Leaf with Rebirth Brass Band, to bolting between finals to catch a bit of Jazz Fest, music was deeply embedded in my college experience. In my senior year, I interned in the marketing department of the House of Blues, which was my first foray into the professional side of the business.

Fast forward two years to 2014—I’ve been dabbling in various music endeavors, including doing a bit of freelance writing for blogs like Live For Live Music. I’m now living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, which at the time was the epicenter of the jam/funk scene, with killer shows at venues like Brooklyn Bowl every night of the week. An ideal place to be a live music junkie in your mid 20s. My orbit begins to closely collide with Kunj Shah’s, as we are often bouncing around the same rooms. It turns out we are even from the same home town and overlapped in high school by a year without knowing each other. We begin to regularly hang out as friends and very soon as more than friends, under the influence of the magic of Electric Forest. We’re now married with two beautiful kids.

Kunj had founded Live For Live Music the year before we met with some of his buddies. At the time it was mostly just a blog featuring show coverage and music news, but it was rapidly taking off and gaining a strong social media following. They had a rabid audience of live music fanatics looking to them to find out what happened at last night’s Phish show, or where to keep the party going with the weekend’s events. Suddenly, shows and festivals were approaching them as a tastemaker in the space, wanting to promote through the platform. This is where my journey with L4LM began. I started to jump in, at first as a favor and for fun, to help button things up and elevate it into a more legitimate, full-service entity. Together we created and built out the marketing division and began to offer our promotional services. Simultaneously, we began producing our own shows and festivals, with Kunj at the helm curating innovative lineups. We’ve now booked top-tier acts like Goose, The String Cheese Incident, Vulfpeck, Umphrey’s McGee, moe., Lettuce and Joe Russo’s Almost Dead, and formed unique supergroups featuring members of just about every band in the scene, from Phish to Dead & Company to The Meters.

A full circle moment came when I was able to bring my love of New Orleans into the fold at L4LM. A year after introducing Kunj to New Orleans in 2014, we launched Live For Live NOLA and began putting together unique collaborative bands for Jazz Fest late nights. New Orleans has become an incredibly special place for both of us, and we love being able to craft once-in-a-lifetime experiences for people in this one-of-a-kind city. We even got married in NOLA, and our kids have attended every Jazz Fest that they’ve been alive for.

After a few years of running around in Brooklyn we were ready for a change (AKA to slow the F down). Denver was on our radar for a while, with its booming music scene, generally slower pace and stunning nature. In 2019 I took a job in Artist Management at C3 in Colorado, working with artists such as The Revivalists, The Ghost of Paul Revere, Flamingosis and Dopapod, and we made the leap. A year later, the pandemic hit and the world shut down, forcing our entire industry into disarray. Without the ability to tour, our management clients were, for lack of a better word, royally f*cked. Survival mode activated, I had to conjure up other ways for them to get by, like running subscription-based fan clubs, planning donation-based livestreams, and creating in-demand merch items. It was a tough time for all, but it was an opportunity to get creative and figure out new an innovative ways to engage with our fans and generate revenue.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Music and the arts should be considered a vital part of every education system and should receive proper funding from the government. Creativity is vital to a child and creative thinking should be nurtured properly from a young age. (Shoutout to Education Through Music for doing wonderful work to bring music education into public schools across Denver).

Working artists should have access to affordable healthcare and therapy. This kind of work is often physically and emotionally demanding, while being financially tenuous, and historically society has not prioritized the well being of its artists. (Shoutout to companies like Backline and Amber for beginning to bring mental health support to the music industry).

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

I picked up a ton from The Creative Act: A Way Of Being by Rick Rubin. It allowed me to gain a deeper perspective of the inner workings of the artist’s mind and help foster an optimal environment for creativity to flow and thrive.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.liveforlivemusic.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesarashah/

Image Credits

Stephanie Parsley, Jay Strausser, Jay Blakesberg, Patrick Hughes, Angela Ricciotti