Festival Director Brendan McDonough speaks with students in 195

Students enrolled in Management 195: Introduction to the Entertainment Business had the opportunity to speak with festival director Brendan McDonough. McDonough is the director for the National Folk Festival held in Butte, Montana. The National Folk Fesitval is one of the country’s largest and most prestigious celebrations of the arts, and will be held in Butte for the next two years. Students held a highly engaging conversation that detailed how events and festivals are conceived, how a board of directors is recruited and selected, how sponsorships are developed, and about the process for assessing events and providing feedback to stakeholders. They also spent considerable time discussing the complexities for producing major festivals in a small town such as Butte.