Kevin Lyman & Dynamic Talent Announce ‘Adapt Conference’ Crash Course On Pandemic-Era Business


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Warped Tour Founder and USC Professor Kevin Lyman and Dynamic Talent International CEO Trevor Swenson have teamed up to announce the timely and perhaps unique “Adapt Conference,” a one-day virtual event featuring classes from people with first-hand success stories during the pandemic era — and teaching viewers how to do it too.

The event will take place Oct. 22 online via Whova Conferencing App, broken down into conversations and 90-minute classes curated and taught by industry leaders, including Force Media Management’s Randy Nichols (Underoath), Live Nation Philadelphia’s Jen Corsilli, Twitch’s Brian Rucker, Veeps’ Joel Madden and many others.
“This is going to be a teaching course, getting the right kinds of speakers involved who are willing to address and talk about what they went through in making their events successful and willing to pass on some information, more than just a panel of people kind of talking about themselves,” Lyman told Pollstar. “This is about people willing to share because they want the whole industry to be successful.”
Along with Swenson and Lyman, additional participants include Joel Madden (Veeps + MDDN), who has helped artists such as Brandi Carlile, Liam Payne, Pete Yorn, and more access fans via Veeps, Vincenzo Giammanco (CBF Productions) who presented California’s first social distancing concert series, Eric Tobin (Hopeless Records) who has helped artists strategize album releases through COVID, Sean Lupton of Opry Entertainment Group, Casey Ianelli of Marathon Live, Laura Hutfless and Jeremy Holley (FlyeVu) who have turned obstacles presented by the pandemic into opportunities for their clients by pivoting, adapting and creating innovative solutions, therefore earning them a spot on the INC5000 Fastest Growing Private Companies list.
“We’re not holding a standard conference but actually having classes taught by people having success in the industry during the COVID era,” Swenson says, adding, “Managers showing how to make revenue streams or artists showing different ways they’re making money or, for venues, showing them how to make money. We’re not just saying this might be a cool idea, but giving them the mentors and the information — ‘This is how we did it, you can go do it too.”
Lyman says Adapt has become necessary as the live business can no longer sit on the sidelines and hope for COVID-19 to go away.
“When this initially happened, everyone was just re-routing tours for this time of year, but that reality is not happening,” Lyman says. “There’s no touring, there’s nothing. You’ve got artists that are diving into streaming that have done very well and others that have sat on the sidelines, but sitting on the sidelines isn’t going to work.”
While 126,000 people attended the mental health-focused virtual 320 Festival he put together with Talinda Bennington, Lyman says the important core goal for Adapt is that people come away with tools and knowledge to continue doing business during the pandemic. 
“My thing is, if you have 100 people involved it’s successful,” Lyman says. “They’ll all take some great knowledge out of it.”
Tickets are on sale now through Eventbrite. For industry professionals, one ticket is $149, for an industry 4-pack, $400, and for students, $49.