On March 23, the second annual Young Blood Discovery Festival will be hosted at Deep Dive, a live music venue located in the Cayuga Lake inlet. The festival was initiated as a capstone project last year for the Entertainment and Media Management MBA. This year, the organization committee has shifted its focus, offering a spotlight for both Cornell and Ithaca College students. Sun Parade, Good Head and Lost Mary’s Band will perform at the event. 

Assistant Life and Culture Editor Mariana Contreras spoke with Mercedesz Stumpf, who has been part of the planning team as well as the marketing director for this year’s festival as part of her capstone project for the MBA program. She spoke on the changes they’ve implemented to the festival this year and the foundation they are hoping to build for future MBA students to host the Young Blood Discovery Festival. MBA

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Mariana Contreras: Could you tell me a little about what the Young Blood Discovery Festival is and why it is significant for students?

Mercedesz Stumpf: The Young Blood Discovery Festival was developed last year for the first time by other MBA students. Part of the MBA is a capstone project where you pick whatever you want to do and you make it come to life. We thought that a continuation of the Young Blood Discovery Festival from last year would be a great way to make it an annual event. This concert specifically has artists who are from the Ithaca community. One of the bands, Lost Mary’s Band, is an Ithaca College band and Good Head is a Cornell student. Our headliner, Sun Parade, happens to be New York City based. That’s actually like a national headliner and we were super fortunate since the owner of Deep Dive actually already knew them. So that was a nice connection and easier to get them that way.

MC: What unique elements or features can attendees expect from this year’s Young Blood Discovery Festival?

MS: The idea of us hiring students and being students who are putting on the festival and then our editor who’s gonna be making the music videos for them is also an Ithaca student. I think the most unique thing about the festival is that we are really student centered. We really want to support the students in the area and help them become more popular. Also as students, this is an experiment for us, kind of like a learning experience. Looking into my future and looking into my team members’ futures, we just want to be prepared for the real world. [Another unique aspect is that] every band that we have is [in a somewhat different] genre. That way an audience can come and not just listen to the same music over and over again. It can be punk and be a little more folk. Anyone who attends will enjoy whatever that comes on stage. I think that just opens up the floor to a wider audience in general.

MC: In terms of audience engagement, what initiatives or activities have been planned to create a memorable experience for students who attend? 

MS: At the festival itself, we’re going to be selling merch. We’re also thinking of possibly having a DJ for the first 45 minutes in the beginning of the festival because the first act doesn’t come on until 8:45 p.m. We are thinking about maybe another Ithaca College student or Cornell student. I’m thinking about maybe implementing experiential marketing here a little bit, such as tabling in the next couple of weeks of March because I feel like a lot of people gravitate towards that a little bit more nowadays than traditional marketing. 

MC: Looking ahead, what do you hope for the future of the Young Blood Discovery Festival and how do you envision that evolving?

MS: I think part of the reason we wanted to continue the Young Blood Discovery Festival from last year is because the MBA program in Entertainment and Media Management is a little bit new. I was an undergraduate in Business Administration with a double concentration in marketing and management, so I really had no idea about the entertainment business at all until this year and having to come up with your own idea of what you want to create in just two semesters was really, really hard. Making this an annual event, I think would be a really great learning experience for the future MBA students, just having something a little bit more concrete that they can look at and continue on. I think it really ties into the college’s legacy of helping out other students. As an experience moving forward, I think that it is really cool for me to put on my resume or say I was able to do all these things that I never thought I could do. Obviously, it requires a lot of work, but you know, when you think about a job and you’re like, “I could never do that” because it just feels so far away. It feels like you have to go through so many different jobs to get there before that. It is really cool to feel like it’s totally possible to be able to do something like this and we want to encourage the future MBA students to believe that they can do the same thing. Making this an annual event is our ultimate goal, and hopefully some people next year decide to work on this event again. 

MC: What have you done to set that foundation?

MS: Some things we’ve done to try to achieve that is definitely establishing relationships. For example, establishing a really good relationship with the owner of Deep Dive, TJ, he’s been such a good resource for us and he was also an Ithaca College student so he knows exactly what it’s like to, you know, be in Ithaca and try to learn as much as possible and make it in the real world. He’s been super helpful and resourceful, so we hope to pass that on to the future.