Last year, we started our conferences calendar video series, which I intended to make annual and well, the year went fast. Here we are January about ready to roll out our 2024 Conferences Calendar for the VO industry. Got a lot of great feedback last year, a lot of comments, both on the video and the downloadable, printable version of the conference's calendar.

So we're back and we're doing it again this year. Once again, this is not an exhaustive list. It is not meant to be comprehensive. It is meant to be simply my recommendations for you, if you're sitting down in January of 2024, or maybe even a little bit later to figure out, okay, what conferences do I wanna hit? Let me get the details. You can get them all right here in this video.

Now, if a conference isn't on this list, I encourage you to do your due diligence, do your research as you would for any conference, including the ones I'm gonna list here.

Voxy Summit cancelled

There is one conference not on the list that I will mention up front. Voxy Summit 2024 has been cancelled. It was originally scheduled for, I think this coming weekend when we're filming this, and it was scheduled for The Graduate Hotel in Nashville, Tennessee.

That conference has been canceled amid very public allegations against coach and demo producer, Lisa Biggs. Lisa Biggs is also the organizer of the Voxy Summit. Two weeks ago, before the conference was canceled, I had a source at The Graduate Hotel in Nashville, confirm to me that that event was never booked at The Graduate. I've reached out to Lisa Biggs through her now defunct website, dreambigg.com and have yet to receive a response.

Now it's not clear right now whether women that have paid for a ticket to Voxy Summit 2024 have been or will be given a refund. Now if Voxy Summit ever comes back, obviously given the recent events, I encourage you to do appropriate research and proceed with appropriate caution.

Wny go to a conference?

Now if you've not been to a voiceover conference before, you may be asking yourself why? Valid question.

Why would you want to go through all the perceived hassle? Why would you want to travel hundreds, possibly thousands of miles? Why would you want to take yourself out of the booth where you're making your money? Why would you want a network which can be uncomfortable for a lot of folks?

And the answer is simply this. Voice over conferences are your best opportunity to meet people, to start and develop relationships which will serve you for the rest of your career. Not only that, those relationships will enrich your life.

Now, sometimes this comes in the form of learning, either through general sessions, breakout sessions, sometimes special paid sessions, or what VO Atlanta calls X-Sessions. Sometimes it's in the form of people, right? Meeting demo producers or coaches that you may have seen online. Meeting other voice actors that you may have already started an online relationship with, right?

Meeting those folks, getting to spend time with them in person. There is no substitute for that.

And in terms of coaches and demo producers, conferences present one of the best opportunities you're ever going to have to sample. In other words, get in the room with these coaches, these demo producers, these different service providers, see how they work, see how you vibe with them. See what kind of chemistry you have. This is your best chance all year to learn from some of the best in the world and to learn about the industry and trends and to get up to speed on what's going on in the world of voiceover.

All of that can sound intimidating and daunting. I get that. Don't let it be. Here's the only thing you need to know to be effective at a voiceover conference. First, be authentically yourself. Second, absorb as much as you can. Learn as much as you can. And third, pace yourself. The rest will take care of itself.

Okay, we're going to lay out the 2024 Conferences Calendar in chronological order. I'll give you some of the details, conference organizers, ticket information, and the like.

So here we go.

February- APAC

Now the 2024 VO Conferences Calendar kicks off this year with APAC, the Audio Publishers Association Conference, February 28th, and this year it's virtual only, online only.

APAC of course is the major conference for the audiobook industry and this year they're pulling no punches with regard to keynote speaker. You might've heard of this guy seven times New York Times best-selling author, Malcolm Gladwell. Malcolm Gladwell will be sharing his thoughts on adapting to change in the audio industry.

Now tickets as of the day we're filming today in January are still available. $115 for members, APAC members, and $215 for non-members. Now the special sessions, like what they used to call speed dating and getting in front of the producers, those you can no longer sign up for. They're already done, but general tickets for members and non-members are available.

Now to get those tickets and get all the information on APAC, go to audiopub.org/apa-conference.

March - VO Atlanta

March brings the Mac Daddy of VO conferences, VO Atlanta, the largest voiceover conference in the world. This year, March 7th through the 10th at the traditional venue, the Hilton Atlanta Airport. This is the 11th annual version of VO Atlanta and the second under the tutelage and stewardship of Anna and J. Michael Collins.

VO Atlanta caters to both voice actors and audio book narrators. Now I make no distinction between the two. Some people do. Some audiobook narrators, maybe rightfully so, feel a little left out of the VO community. I think that's crap.

My point here is I just want everybody to know that everyone is welcome at VO Atlanta.

Now there are a number of ways to attend VO Atlanta this year, but one of the ways you cannot attend this year… you can't get a pass for just Thursday, Friday or Saturday, Sunday. All the tickets now, whether they're in person or virtual, are for the full weekend. You can either attend in person and get a virtual ticket, which gives you access to all the recorded panels and sessions.

The Kids Program is back this year, so child voice actors can attend the Kids Session programming on Friday and Saturday. They can also go to the opening ceremonies on Thursday, closing ceremonies on Sunday, and kids can go to all the VO Atlanta social events as long as they have proper supervision.

Also again this year, the audiobook content has been reincorporated into the main body of the conference.

The Spanish Track is alive and well this year with lots of programming for Spanish-speaking voice actors.

Now, speakers. The keynote speaker this year is an absolute legend, the great Maurice LaMarche, who I think has been in every animated production ever made. It feels that way, anyway. Let's talk about Futurama, Pinky and the Brain, The Critic, The Little Mermaid, and on and on and on and on. And the overall list of speakers and presenters is robust to say the least.

Now I'm thrilled to be on two panels this year at VO Atlanta. First, I'll be moderating the Marketing Panel on Friday on the main stage in the main ballroom. And joining me will be the likes of... Check this lineup… Marc Scott, Tracy Lindley, Tom Dheere, Carrie Olsen, and Christi Bowen.

And I'll also be a member on the Famous Online Casting Panel. And I'll also be a member on the famous online casting panel, which takes place Saturday on the main stage, hosted by none other than J. Michael Collins, along with Carin Gilfry, Brad Hyland, Rolf Veldman, Bev Standing, and myself.

Both are sure to be super informative and fun.

Now tickets for VO Atlanta as of the day we're filming this., there are some tickets still available, but I will tell you this:

VO Atlanta will sell out and there will be a thousand attendees there. That's not to mention staff and presenters. So, my best advice for VO Atlanta is this. Treat it like Disney World. Resign yourself to the fact that it's impossible to see it all, you're never gonna see it all, and that you have to pace yourself.

It's four days long and it can be physically, socially, and mentally exhausting if you let it. Don't let it. Remember, all you have to do to be effective is be authentically yourself, learn as much as you can, be friendly, and let the rest take care of itself.

My best advice is build breaks into your schedule. It's okay to take an hour off here and there. I take a block every afternoon, completely off. I go back to my room. I sit and listen to the silence for a while. I get a little water. I chill out. I might bang out a couple of auditions or if there's a project that is an emergency for a client, I can do that.

But mostly, I'm just there to get away from the crowd and decompress. It's one of the best things I've ever done for my VO Atlanta experience. You'd be amazed at what 45 minutes even can do for your mental health and for your stamina throughout the day.

VO Atlanta is a marathon, it's not a sprint. My advice, stay hydrated, pack snacks in your bag so that your blood sugar stays nice and even if you're the kind of person that works out, keep doing that and in as much as you can.

And I'm a bit of a hypocrite here, I admit it, because it's intense. Protect your sleep as much as you possibly can. And my last tip, don't make a lot of solid plans if you can for Monday and Tuesday after the conference, especially if you're traveling late Sunday or on Monday. You're gonna need a couple days to recover.

All the news that's fit to print for VO Atlanta, tickets, information, speaker schedules, and more at VOAtlanta.me.

April - VOcation

April 25th through the 28th is the VOcation Conference this year at the beautiful beachfront Dreams Las Mareas Resort and Hotel in Costa Rica. VOcation is the only conference that, in our industry, that focuses entirely on the business side of voiceover. It's organized and presented by Carin Gilfry and Jamie Muffet, who also coincidentally host the VO Breakfast Show podcast.

This year's keynote is video game and animation badass, Jennifer Hale. (She's also the founder of Skills Hub for voice actors), which I think also makes 2020 for the unofficial year of the Canadian keynote with Jennifer Hale and Maurice LaMarche at two of the biggest conferences. Other speakers include Erikka J., Lynn Norris, Kristin Paiva, Dave Walsh, Bridid Reale, NAVA President Tim Friedlander, Internet sensation Stefan Johnson, and many more.

Now the thing that makes vocation unique and different is that when you go to a normal conference, you'll see your friend, you know, you'll gather that morning and then everybody will go off to whatever session they intend to go to. The thing with vocation is everybody's in the same session at the same time. Everybody's in the room together and that gives you a much better chance to get to know the people to the left, to the right, front and behind you. Get up, get some water in between sessions. Maybe sit down in a different place, mingle with some other folks, or maybe stay with the same folks. But because you're all in the same session together, you kind of get to know each other a little bit differently than you would if you were all scattered throughout the day.

Tickets for VOcation are reasonable, $575. Rooms at the Las Mareas Beachfront Resort and Hotel run between $450 and $550 a night, depending on which room you get. And the resort is all inclusive, which means all your meals, all your beverages, all your entertainment, that's all included.

The other great thing about this conference being at a resort is, and the organizers know this, so they build in a little bit more playtime, a little bit more social time, so that again, you can develop those relationships with your peers and with service providers a little bit more deeply than you would at maybe some of the other conferences.

May - One Voice UK

Now, May brings the first of two annual One Voice conferences. First up, May 15th through the 19th, One Voice UK. That's at the DoubleTree by Hilton London, Docklands Riverside, right on the River Thames. How much more London could you get?

One Voice, of course, is presented by Hugh Edwards and Peter Dixon, our friends at Gravy for the Brain. They also organize the One Voice USA Conference, which we'll talk about in a moment, and they do a bang-up job. This will be the seventh annual iteration of One Voice UK.

Now, speakers and details have not been announced yet, but tickets are on sale even now in late January for One Voice UK. You can get tickets for in-person or virtual as well.

August - One Voice USA

August brings the second in the One Voice Conference series, One Voice USA, back in Dallas this year at the DFW International Airport August 8th through 11th. Man, there's nothing like Dallas, Texas in August.

This one of course also presented by Gravy for the Brain along with J. Michael Collins. Tickets not on sale yet.

Speakers details have not been announced yet, but I can tell you this, I have been twice now to One Voice USA. Can't speak for One Voice UK, but One Voice USA is what I would call a mid-sized conference. It's not as small and intimate quite perhaps as maybe MAVO or VOcation but it's certainly not as large as VO Atlanta and that middle size gives you a little bit more room to breathe and to be able to navigate it's much less of an endurance sport than, let's say VO Atlanta is.

And of course both conferences feature their own respective One Voice Awards both in the UK and the USA. Now if you're not familiar and you want to go to the One Voice Awards, maybe you'll be nominated this year and you'll want to go, that is a separate ticket from the conference itself.

Now for my money, the One Voice I gotta say, outside of Uncle Roy's BBQ… I got a special place in my heart for that guy… outside of that party, this is the best party in the entire VO industry all year.

September - eVOcation

E-Vocation is the virtual version of vocation and Carin and Jamie originally, as you might guess, started this during COVID when everybody was locked down, but they decided to keep E-Vocation around because it provides a more affordable alternative to vocation where you can get a lot of the same type of information without spending a lot more money at a resort and being in person.

Dates have not been finalized yet, but Carin Gilfry tells me, look for e-VOcation to take place sometime in late September and look for tickets to be in the $300 to $350 range.

November - MAVO

November 8th through the 10th in Washington, DC, it's MAVO, the Mid-Atlantic Voice-Over Conference, at the Westin Dulles Hotel, actually technically in Herndon, Virginia in the Washington DC area.

This will be the 9th annual MAVO and it's organized as always by my dear friend, Val Kelly. Now MAVO, of the group that we're mentioning here, maybe along with VOcation, is the smallest in terms of the number of attendees and Val purposely keeps it limited to like 100, 125 attendees to give a much more personal, boutique experience.

And I can vouch for this because MAVO was my first ever conference, first one I ever went to and man, they can be overwhelming and at MAVO and these smaller regional conferences, oftentimes that boutique experience comes home to roost because you can make friends a little bit easier, you can navigate a little bit more, you can really get to know people. I've got friends to this day that I have from my first MAVO experience.

December - That’s Voiceover!

And finally, December means That's Voiceover, presented by SOVAS, and that venue has typically alternated between New York and Los Angeles. That's Voiceover tends to cater a little bit more towards the newcomer to the voiceover industry. So, if you've been to several voiceover conferences, you may want to wait till details come out until you make a decision on That's Voiceover.

No details as of now in January, it’s in December, it's almost a year away, are available yet. But when they come out, when they're fit to print Joan and Rudy will have all the information for you at sovas.org. That's S-O-V-A-S dot org.

And that's it. That's your 2024 conference calendar for the year. Not an exhaustive list as we said up front, but hopefully you'll get some solid recommendations and some ideas for the conferences that you want to attend in 2024.

To get the downloadable printable calendar, click here.

For more information on the VO Freedom Master Plan, the VO Pro Community, or to get my Move, Touch, Inspire newsletter for voice actors every Thursday, click those links.

And thanks for your comments and the conversations we have both here on the YouTube channel, in the VO Pro Community, and in the larger voiceover community at large. The more we talk amongst ourselves civilly, calmly, rationally, the better and stronger industry we can have.

Thanks so much for your support, and we'll see you back here again next week.

APAC: https://audiopub.org/apa-conference
VO Atlanta: https://votlanta.me
VO Atlanta Spanish Track: https://www.voatlanta.me/voa2024/SpanishSpeakers
VOcation and eVOcation: https://vocationconference.com
One Voice UK and USA: https://onevoiceconference.com
MAVO: https://www.midatlanticvo.com/
That’s Voiceover: https://sovas.org

The VO Breakfast Show: https://podbay.fm/p/the-vo-breakfast-show