Canada’s Trebas Institute’s BeatMakersFest Marketing Intern Interview

Meet Sophie Masson she is lead marketer for the upcoming BeatmakersFest taking place September 4th in Montreal CA. Sophies explains us how she got into marketing, her love for Montreal, getting a summer gig at Tribas Institute and more.

Hello Sophie where home?

Hi. I’m from New York. Sadly no, I’m not from the city, but just outside in the suburbs of Westchester. I’m currently living in Montreal, Quebec because of school. I go to McGill University and loved the city so much that I decided to stay for the summer and work.

How did you get into the music business?

As I mentioned, I’m currently a student. I just finished my first year and I’m slowly starting to figure out what I want to do with my life. Marketing has always appealed to me for some reason. Maybe it’s the idea of working from home or maybe it’s because my mom is in marketing. After calling my mom to tell her I wasn’t coming back home for the summer (much to her dismay), she helped me look for a summer internship.

Now, Montreal is a bilingual city so it’s hard to find a job if you don’t speak both French and English. Unfortunately, my French is not very good so I was extremely appreciative to hear back from Trebas Institue. I went in for an interview and almost escaped with the job unscathed when my boss popped the dreaded question. I told her that I wasn’t fluent in French yet she still gave me the job. I’m so grateful she gave me this chance because I’ve really enjoyed the work I’ve gotten to do this summer including being the lead marketer for our first ever Beatmakersfest.

Your role at Trebas Institute?

I just work in the communications department hence the email address. I’m technically just an intern but since I’m a part of a small team, I’ve come to acquire a multitude of responsibilities. In the beginning, I mostly worked on content creation, creating articles and social media posts to promote our newest program: Digital Marketing and Social Media. Slowly however, I began to take over content creation for the Beatmakersfest.

I wrote articles to help promote beat making and the event, wrote and sent out the press release and handled many different publicity actions such as social media exposure as well as reaching out to blogs such as yours. I guess in short, my job is to create content and publicity for our events in order to get people interested.

How many students usually attend the program?

I couldn’t tell you. This is our first ever Beatmakersfest so it’ll be a surprise to all of us. A lot of students from different programs have been working together to put this event together so we expect a majority of them to come see the result of all their hard work.

Are majority of the students from Canada?

I would say that a majority of students are from Canada however, we do have a significant amount of international students who fell in love with the city much like I did. Since we’re not a huge university and don’t have dorms, studying at Trebas Institute as an international student is a big commitment. Having said that, I believe that most of them are quite happy with their decision.

How long have you been holding these events?

As I said before, I’m interning at Trebas Institute for the summer so this is the first event I’ve been a part of. I couldn’t tell you exactly what events this school has been a part of but I know they’ve helped host others.

What are your long tern goals for the festival?

Our first goal is to successfully put on the event. Seems pretty obvious, but our students have been working all term for this event. Even in the beginning, they were learning skills that would eventually culminate into this project. Secondly, we hope to make this an annual event. The dream would be to have it be up there right along with Montreal’s Jazz Fest. There’s a large beat making community in Montreal and we feel that they deserve a platform to present themselves. We want the Beatmakersfest to be a place where this community can come together and support and encourage each other.

How did Steve Pageot get involved in this project?

Trebas Institue has worked with Steve Pageot in the past. Although he was born in Brooklyn, New York, he went to school in Montreal so the city is very close to his heart. When we presented him with the project, he was very interested. He wanted to help support emerging artists and give them an opportunity to show their stuff.

A favorite app you just cant live without?

Probably SnapChat. I still have a US phone plan which doesn’t charge me for international call and text but it does charge others. Unfortunately, my friend and I found out the hard way after he racked up a $300 phone bill of international calls. Oops. I’ve found that SnapChat is the easiest way for me to stay connected and talk to my friends without charging them a fortune.

Last words or shout outs??

Again, I have to give a shout out to Trebas Institute for giving me this opportunity. You will never understand the gratitude I feel towards them unless you’re an international student who doesn’t speak French trying to find a job (that isn’t a dish washer) in Montreal. I’d also like to thank you again for this opportunity. You’ve done so much for us and our event and we really appreciate it.