Global Entertainment and Music Business

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  Zachary Coles - Disrupción Records CEO/Label Manager

  Zachary Coles
  2026

  The objective of this Culminating Experience is to have a hands-on operational experience within the record label sector of the music industry. The goal is to develop leadership skills directly related to leading a team and heading the operations of a working record label. This particular experience will expose the leader to the operational structures and systems of a record label and prepare them to be a leader within the recording industry. The label manager will ensure that all other executives work to complete their roles to their highest ability and provide opportunities for the team to develop a unified vision and execution of said vision.

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  Ilia Egorov - CE Project

  Ilia Egorov
  2026

  This project examines the role of Head of Social Media at Disrupción Records, focusing on the strategic development of the label's digital identity and the support provided to artists in strengthening their social media presence. The practicum demonstrates that effective social media management extends beyond content creation and performance analysis, requiring a strategy-first approach that integrates brand identity, audience development, and cross-functional collaboration. While technical skills in content production were necessary due to limited resources, the primary emphasis was on designing and executing a coherent digital strategy informed by data and industry best practices. Throughout the project, practical experience was gained in brand identity development, content planning and production, social media analytics, artist consulting, and collaboration with marketing and other music industry professionals. The challenges encountered during the practicum provided valuable learning opportunities and reinforced the importance of strategic thinking in digital marketing. Overall, the experience significantly contributed to the development of professional competencies relevant to artist management, artist development, and the broader music industry.

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  From Discovery to Community: Attracting and Building Lasting Gen Z Audiences

  Sylvia Ettinger
  2026

  The rapid evolution of the music industry, driven by emerging platforms and technology, creates new challenges for artists to attract and retain audiences. As marketers, understanding the artist’s vision and communicating their identity is essential in fostering lasting fan bases. Reliance on massive reach, the traditional industry funnel, and large budgets is no longer the driving factor of audience attraction. The artists who succeed in the next decade will be the ones who develop a deep knowledge of their fans and build real communities. The present work aims to understand the current fan economy through Gen Z audience behavior, cultural shifts and consumption trends, and globalization driven by live music. To perform a comprehensive analysis, surveys were conducted alongside interviews with industry professionals. The goal was to uncover the driving factors that move audiences from listeners to long-term fans. According to survey results, Gen Z discovers music through social networks and algorithms combined with peer validation. Their habits are passive but abundant and demonstrate higher engagement rates and event-based spending. Fandom is rooted in identity alignment, community belonging, and character. Therefore, marketing should center around personalization, authenticity, and storytelling, as well as redefining music ownership as the experience rather than the product. This research exists as a living document that synthesizes audience behavior across genres and markets. The findings aim to provide actionable insights for music marketers to create lasting connections.

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  Nichole Fierro-Ryan - CE Project (Disrupción Records)

  Nichole Fierro-Ryan
  2026

  This culminating experience proposes an operational leadership project serving as Head of Legal and Business Affairs for Disrupción Records under the supervision of Pete Dyson. As Head of Legal & Business Affairs, my aim is to oversee all aspects of Disrupción Record’s financial statements, manage contracts between the label’s imprints and their artists, as well as manage all business operations for the label. This culminating experience included restructuring the contract administration process to facilitate artist signings both for the label's internal stakeholders and external stakeholders, creating Disrupción's first ever specialised label to label licensing agreement, and aiming to support and uplift our artists through strategic budget allocation for the label. Through this CE, I also aimed to gain more knowledge on career prospects similar to my role by developing a global network of Business & Legal industry professionals to better prepare me for my post-masters career.

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  Tiantian Hu - CE Project

  TIANTIAN HU
  2026

  This reflection paper documents my culminating experience as Head of Sync & Neighboring Rights at Disrupción Records, a student-run label at Berklee Valencia. The project focused on building a structured sync workflow from the ground up, including catalog preparation, artist onboarding, metadata management, outreach to music supervisors, and exploration of the Asian market. Through hands-on practice, I established a repeatable sync process while also gaining clarity about my professional direction. Although the project helped me develop practical industry skills, it also revealed that my true passion lies in A&R and creative development rather than sync representation. This paper reflects on what I built, what I learned, and how this experience guided me toward a more aligned career path.

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  Leo Leistner - Head of A&R DR'26

  Leo Leistner
  2026

  My Culminating Experience consisted of serving as Head of A&R for Disrupción Records, with the goal of supporting the label’s imprint structure, artist development, scouting, signing decisions, and release planning. Across the project, I worked closely with sub-label leads, artists, and the executive team to guide artist conversations, clarify expectations, and help creative projects move toward structured release paths. As the year progressed, the role expanded beyond traditional A&R into wider label operations. I developed internal resources, managed open submissions, built project tracking systems, standardized asset delivery, supported communication across departments, and contributed directly to studio work, mixing, visual identity, marketing assets, and live event execution. The experience showed that A&R in an independent label depends on creative judgment, artist care, reliable systems, and shared accountability. It confirmed my interest in artist development and strengthened my ability to connect creative direction with practical execution.

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  Protecting Young Artists in South Korea’s Idol Industry: Challenges, Consequences, and Recommendations

  Amanda Loh
  2026

  The research on the psychological well-being of juveniles who work in the music industry from a young age is scarce. As social media’s role in casting and A&R continues to gain significance, the number of young people entering the industry is likely to grow. Using South Korea’s K-Pop industry, this qualitative, exploratory study examines how entering the idol industry at a young age affects development, the challenges they face, and the extent to which current label and legislative protections support their well-being in the industry. Semi-structured interviews with four participants, including two former idols who trained as minors, a clinical psychologist, and an industry professional, were thematically analysed. Findings suggest that several domains of development are affected, most significantly identity, as artists’ self-worth becomes intertwined with their appearance, work, and public reception. These effects were aggravated by a constant fear, continuous monitoring of the talents by staff and the public, and an intense scrutiny of their bodies. The current industry and legislative protections were found to be insufficient, lacking independence, confidentiality, continuity, and enforcement. Trainees also fall outside existing legislative protections. This study proposes safeguards across familial, organisational, and legislative levels to support young artists.

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  Latina Biz Music

  Aynes Lopez Espada
  2026

  This culminating experience documents the design and implementation of LATINA BIZ MUSIC, a Latina-led imprint developed under Disrupción Records to support songwriter-driven Latin artists through artist-centered development, narrative ownership, and strategic marketing. The project responds to the growing need for development models that prioritize cultural authenticity, long-term career building, and creative agency alongside commercial objectives within the contemporary Latin music industry. Through qualitative industry research and practice-based application, the project establishes the imprint's strategic positioning, brand identity, operational framework, and marketing methodology. These were implemented through artist development initiatives and release campaigns, most notably for emerging artist BENDECK, allowing the proposed framework to be evaluated in a real-world setting. The project also includes branding systems, partnership strategy, and documentation of key A&R, marketing, and operational decisions. This work demonstrates how an imprint can integrate storytelling, strategic planning, and data-informed decision-making to support sustainable artist development. Ultimately, the project provides a practical framework for culturally driven music entrepreneurship and contributes an adaptable model for independent artist development within the global music industry.

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  Emmalee Manigat - CE Project

  Manigat Manigat
  2026

  This reflective paper explores my culminating experience as Head of the Collegiate Recording Industry Alliance (CRIA) as an executive at Disrupción Records. While I initially approached the role with the goal of expanding CRIA’s external presence through new initiatives, outreach, and industry engagement, the experience ultimately shifted toward understanding the organization’s role within Disrupción and creating a strong foundation of materials that can support student leaders during the official launch of CRIA, which I anticipate launching in 2026. Through research on student trade bodies, strategic planning, and extensive collaboration with the Disrupción executive team, I gained a deeper understanding of the challenges and opportunities that organizations like CRIA must adapt to. This experience also involved the development of long-term organizational assets, rebuilding the CRIA website, and gaining a deeper understanding of how Disrupción’s executives contribute to the support provided through CRIA. This paper reflects on the project’s outcomes, the process of adapting to changing circumstances, and the ways in which serving on the executive team of a student-run label expanded my understanding of the music industry. It concludes by considering CRIA’s future potential and the importance of building a sustainable foundation for its continued growth.

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  Momento Music LLC: Business Plan and Customer Insights Report for a UAE Live-Music Promoter-Operator

  Hamad Mattar
  2026

  Momento Music LLC is a right-sized live-music promoter-operator for the United Arab Emirates, curating, booking, producing, and promoting recurring community events of 100 to 1,000 capacity across Dubai and Abu Dhabi. This Culminating Experience pairs the venture's full business plan with a customer insights report that validates it. The business plan covers strategy, market, marketing, financial projections, implementation, and control, built on the thesis that the UAE has venues, sponsors, and audiences but few professional mid-scale operators to connect them. The customer insights report documents the evidence behind that thesis: feedback from the Entrepreneurship Practicum jury and academic advisor, expert interviews across the UAE live-music value chain, and a hands-on promoter field experiment in Valencia. The research confirms a real supply-side gap and shows that demand is community-led, reached through owned channels such as WhatsApp. The jury and interviews also surfaced a larger opportunity in Momento's internal AI-assisted Operations Hub, which the company is now evaluating as an AI SaaS platform serving other promoters and venues. Year 1 revenue is projected at $163,376 against a recommended launch funding of $122,532, with two pilot events set to convert qualitative findings into first-party data.

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  Momento_Music_Outcome_Paper_Final_(After_Jury_Feedback).pdf

  Stephanie Mejia Ilyk
  2026

  Momento Music LLC is a right-sized live-music promoter-operator based in Abu Dhabi, UAE, addressing a distinct supply-side gap for curated, mid-scale creative entertainment. This project combines a comprehensive business plan with a Customer Insights Report that validates the venture using qualitative expert interviews, a hands-on promoter field experiment, and a proprietary, AI-assisted Operations Hub. The research demonstrates that regional live-music demand is deeply community-led, converting most efficiently through owned channels like WhatsApp rather than traditional broadcast marketing. While the Operations Hub launches strictly as an internal decision tool to de-risk a first-year calendar of 12–18 events, jury and industry feedback successfully shifted the venture's long-term strategic trajectory toward a phased evolution into an ecosystem-wide AI data platform. Ultimately, this project contributes a scalable operational framework for live entertainment in fragmented markets, proving that rigorous data discipline and community-first curation can optimize venue economics, secure sponsor alignment, and mitigate promoter risk before capital deployment.

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  A Structural Analysis of Royalty Distribution Systems in South African Collective Management Organisations

  Leomile Motsetsela
  2026

  This study examines how the structural and operational characteristics of South African collective management organisations (CMOs) shape royalty allocation patterns, transparency levels, and the accumulation and management of undistributed ("black-box") royalties. Focusing on South Africa's three principal music CMOs—SAMRO, CAPASSO, and SAMPRA—the study adopts a qualitative case study design combining documentary analysis, semi-structured interviews, and direct observation of member-facing digital systems. The findings demonstrate that the effectiveness of royalty distribution is shaped by the interaction between governance arrangements and operational processes. While South Africa has established relatively sophisticated collective rights management institutions, opportunities remain to strengthen stakeholder participation, improve data capture and interoperability, and enhance transparency and accountability across the royalty distribution system. The study concludes that many challenges affecting royalty distribution arise not from the absence of governance structures or reporting mechanisms, but from limitations in how effectively these systems support participation, information exchange, and accountability. It contributes to the limited body of South African scholarship on collective rights management and offers recommendations for improving the effectiveness, transparency, and accountability of royalty administration.

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  BORM Consulting - Business Plan

  Adriana Navarro
  2026

  BORM Consulting is a boutique music strategy consultancy designed to help emerging Puerto Rican artists, their teams, and production companies build international careers by strategically entering the Spanish market. The consultancy addresses a structural gap in the Puerto Rican music industry: artist teams with growing momentum and audience demand lack the market knowledge, industry connections, and strategic guidance needed to expand into Spain, compounded by the absence of a national music export office. BORM Consulting offers four core services: International Expansion Strategy, Brand Partnership Development, Live Opportunity and Network Development, and Strategic Artist Positioning, delivered through a flexible, low-commitment model combining project packages, retainers, strategy sessions, and success fees. BORM Consulting positions itself as the strategic bridge between Puerto Rico's talent and Spain's audience demand, offering a sustainable pathway to international growth currently unavailable to emerging artists.

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  EcoSCAPE

  Cameron Newton
  2026

  This is a business plan for the live music industry start up EcoSCAPE CIC. EcoSCAPE is an innovative waste management company that focuses on creating a larger circular economy for greenfield festivals in the United Kingdom. EcoSCAPE can be thought of as a company that is: Reclaiming, Reusing, Renting and Regenerating. The company provides services for the community in three arms: Waste management for music festivals,Gear Rental Services for festival goers, Revenue Generation for local regenerative agricultural projects. We work with music festivals across the region to help divert items left abandoned at music festivals and give them a new life. In turn we head back to those very same customers to offer affordable rental gear for their campsites. We operate with the ethos that everyone should have access to sustainable camping choices and not be priced out of options that are better for the environment. Using a portion of revenue generated from every rental item we donate funds to local regenerative agricultural projects giving back to the very land that festivals take place on.

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  Momento Music

  Bayoán Ocasio Vazquez
  2026

  This project presents the business plan and customer insights report for Momento Music LLC, a proposed live-music promoter-operator in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The UAE possesses robust live-music demand and infrastructure but lacks professional, mid-scale operators to curate community-led events. To address this gap, Momento was designed to curate, produce, and promote right-sized events (100–1,000 capacity) using a proprietary, AI-assisted Operations Hub. The project's methodology combined a comprehensive business plan with qualitative customer validation, including expert interviews across the music value chain, entrepreneurship practicum jury feedback, and a hands-on audience conversion field experiment. The findings confirmed a significant supply-side market gap and revealed that live-music demand is deeply community-led, optimally engaged through owned channels like WhatsApp rather than broad paid marketing. Furthermore, the research validated the prototype Operations Hub as a significant competitive advantage. Consequently, the venture's strategic direction evolved into a phased roadmap: operating initial pilot events as a data-gathering laboratory, with the future prospect of productizing the Operations Hub into an AI platform that provides connective infrastructure for the highly fragmented UAE music ecosystem.

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  Santiago Palacios - CE Project

  Santiago Palacios
  2026

  Raíz Sonora Records was created as a culturally focused imprint within Disrupción Records to support Colombian artists living and creating music in Spain. The project emerged from the observation that an increasing number of Colombian artists are building their careers abroad while trying to remain connected to their cultural identity, despite the lack of industry structures specifically designed to support them. Over seven months, this Culminating Experience evolved from an initial idea into a functioning imprint with a defined identity, an active artist roster, release campaigns, strategic partnerships, and a growing presence within Colombian and Latin communities in Spain. Through the signing and development of two artists, the project integrated artist development, A&R, branding, project management, marketing, community engagement, and live event execution. The project also explored how cultural identity can function as a strategic advantage and how entrepreneurial principles, particularly an “artist as startup” mindset, can be applied to early-stage artist development. Ultimately, Raíz Sonora demonstrated the potential of culturally focused initiatives to generate meaningful artistic and professional opportunities for Colombian artists far from home.

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  Rites Of Sound Business Plan

  Nefeli Papazoglou
  2026

  This business plan addresses the challenges faced by breakthrough-stage artists, including limited funding, strategic support, and visibility, while helping brands create authentic cultural engagement, based on primary and secondary research. The proposal is Rites of Sound (ROS), a cultural development platform and experiential marketing studio connecting emerging music artists with brands through concept-driven, long-term collaborations inspired by the process of rituals. Focusing on overlooked but culturally influential talent, ROS describes an alternative to traditional sponsorship models by prioritising simultaneous development of both the brand and the artist through a common narrative that unfolds over a series of intimate events with ritualistic elements, which have long been recognised as effective mechanisms for strengthening social bonds, reinforcing shared values, and fostering loyal communities. The model aims to create greater value for all stakeholders by enabling more meaningful artist development, stronger brand engagement, and richer audience experiences. While the research indicates a promising market opportunity, further validation is required to determine how the model can scale without compromising the intimacy and authenticity that define the ROS experience.

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  Caio Vandrés

  Carlos Rivas Plata Castro
  2026

  The present business plan explores the creation of a personal brand and cultural enterprise at the intersection of music and dance in live experiences within the music industry. The brand, Caio Vandrés, is an umbrella public-facing brand that offers experience design and curation services under a tripartite business model: (1) creatively directing live show productions (Caio Vandrés Presents), (2) coaching clients through transformative music-dance workshops and keynotes (Caio Vandrés Inspires), and (3) co-hosting artistic residencies that develop fresh ideas and a sense of community in the performing arts (Caio Vandrés Connects). The unique differentiator of this brand relies mainly on the use of Latin American and Spanish traditions in an innovative, unconventional yet effective way, fostering creative performance, well-being, and cultural coherence within global organizations and projects.

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  Head of Distribution, Production and New Business

  Karam Said
  2026

  This Culminating Experience reflects on my role as Head of Distribution, Production, and New Business at Disrupcion Records, a student-led label at Berklee Valencia. The project gave me the opportunity to work across different areas of label operations, from managing the distribution process with The Orchard to supporting releases, coordinating assets, and helping organize public events that brought the label’s identity to life. The paper explores both the practical and creative sides of the experience. On the distribution side, it looks at how releases were prepared, tracked, delivered, and promoted across platforms. On the production and new business side, it reflects on events, community building, collaborations, and the challenge of connecting Disrupcion with the local Valencia scene. Overall, this experience helped me understand how a label functions beyond the music itself. It also clarified my interest in A&R, operations, and creative label development within independent and underground music scenes.

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  Keisha Sanchez - CE Business Plan

  Keisha Sanchez
  2026

  This is a comprehensive business plan for Melo Events, a proposed events and cultural platform based in Bogotá, Colombia, created to support Afro-Colombian professionals across the music industry. While Afro-Colombian culture has deeply shaped Colombian and global music, access to decision-making spaces remains very limited. Melo Events aims to bridge that gap by building community, access, and professional growth through live events.

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  Bad Bunny: A Case Study on Residencies and the Future of Live Music

  Jean C. Santana Morales
  2026

  The case study examines Bad Bunny's 2025 concert residency, No Me Quiero Ir De Aquí, held across thirty-one nights at the Coliseo José Miguel Agrelot in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and its impact on the live music industry, the Puerto Rican economy, and the island's cultural identity. The central question driving this project is whether residency-based concert models can serve as a viable alternative to traditional touring. To answer it, the case study traces a decade of Bad Bunny's career, analyzes the anatomy of the residency inside and outside the arena, and documents its economic and sociocultural impact through five independent studies, real transaction data, and primary sources obtained exclusively for this project. The case concludes by leaving the central question open, inviting the reader and the industry to interpret the evidence and determine for themselves whether the residency model is viable and whether it can be replicated.

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  Sofia Schlesinger - Pretty Loud Records

  Sofia Schlesinger
  2026

  Pretty Loud is a concept-driven and community-based imprint dedicated to helping femmes in the DIY punk rock scene. The name Pretty Loud plays on what is expected of women (to be pretty, polished, palatable) and what is discouraged (making noise, taking up space). We’re not interested in refinement for the sake of comfort - we want volume, honesty, and unapologetic presence. Think raw, loud, subversive, experimental, DIY. Inspired by the ethos of the 1990s Riot Grrrl feminist movement, this imprint centers artists who go against the grain and challenge industry norms both sonically and culturally. We believe punk is not just a sound but a guiding structure to challenge power and build community from the margins. Pretty Loud prioritizes authenticity and expression over marketability, and our mission is to support femme artists in the male-dominated alternative, punk, and DIY rock spaces. This operational work involved signing four punk artists across the world and managing twelve releases.

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  The Working Conditions of Artist Managers: Mental Health and Career Sustainability in Today's Music Industry

  Marie Šubrtová
  2026

  The music industry has changed significantly over the past two decades. Streaming, digital platforms, and social media have reshaped how artists and their teams build their careers. Growing attention to mental health in the music industry has so far focused mainly on artists. The artist managers who often hold these careers together get much less attention. This thesis explores how the working conditions of artist managers in today's music industry affect their mental health and the sustainability of their careers. The research combines a literature review with thirteen semi-structured interviews. Eleven were with artist managers and two with industry specialists. The findings show that the challenges artist managers face are largely structural. The thesis focuses on three connected factors. The first is the commission-based pay model, which has not changed while the role has grown. The second is the expansion of the role itself. The third is the emotional labor that comes with the work but is not reflected in pay, recognition, or professional support. The thesis argues that meaningful change will need to be structural too. It suggests several directions for change, including recognition of the role, education, dedicated mental health support, state-level financial support, and alternative financial models within the industry.

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  Business Plan SolBands

  Benlloch Navarrete Teresa
  2026

  This business plan develops a strategic framework for SolBands, an innovative venture designed to revolutionize sustainability and audience engagement within the live music industry. Large-scale festivals invest heavily in invisible backstage eco-management, failing to inspire behavioral change among attendees or efficiently capture mandatory audience environmental data. SolBands addresses these gaps by transforming single-use festival wristbands into reusable, solar- and kinetic-energy-harvesting wearable devices. Utilizing a Hardware-as-a-Service (HaaS) model backed by an international patent, the venture leverages micro-renewable hardware and gamified incentives to convert fan movement into real-time sustainability metrics, digital rewards, and live crowd-density safety heatmaps. To optimize financial sustainability, a proprietary 10x recycling loop was engineered to spread capital expenditures across multiple event cycles. Ultimately, this project transitions from a hardware-centric focus to a Data-as-a-Service (DaaS) infrastructure, offering verified ESG impact reports that enable promoters to unlock public subsidies. This venture contributes a scalable blueprint for self-sustaining, interactive event technology.

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  Disrupción Records Head of Marketing and Branding

  Isabella Venna Lembo
  2026

  This is a reflection paper about my Culminating Experience as Head of Marketing & Branding at Disrupción Records. Throughout the academic year, I supported the branding and marketing efforts of the label and its imprints by developing marketing strategies, branding guidelines, communication materials, release planning templates, newsletters, and community-building initiatives.