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VO Atlanta 2024 is in the books!
I had an amazing time as always! I wanted to give it a little bit of time before I posted this blog so I could let it all sink in. Without further ado, here are my top five takeaways from VO Atlanta 2024.
Number 5: The Presenters
Everybody was kind. Everybody was obviously knowledgeable, but everybody was also accessible.
Some presenters have been in the business for 20 or 30 years, but there were others who were newer to the industry and had achieved success relatively quickly. They had lots of tips and tricks to share about what it's like to enter the industry in the 2020s, how to be able to navigate it, and how to be able to be successful.
Number 4: The Trends
It wasn't the same old content from the same old presenters.
They talked about the latest trends in social media, casting, and more. What are voice seekers looking for right now? How should your demos be right now? What should your website look like right now? How can you market yourself right now?
Number 3: AI
There's a lot of stigma abut AI. There's a lot of controversy. There's a lot of confusion. There's a lot of disinformation. There's a lot of misinformation.
There are individuals and organizations in the voiceover industry who are not only anti AI, but they're keeping themselves willfully ignorant and keeping the people in their ecosystems willfully ignorant of AI, which I believe is extraordinarily damaging to themselves and to the industry at large.
The fact that so many presenters were talking intelligently and thoughtfully about AI and creating a safe environment to learn about it, talk about, it and express concerns about it speaks well of the culture of VO Atlanta.
Number 2: Voices.com
If you've ever attended the annual Online Casting Panel at VO Atlanta, you know that the conversation can be, well, spirited. This year was no exception
There was a surprise panelist: Jay O'Connor, CEO of Voices.com. Everybody in the audience was quite surprised that this gentleman showed up for the event.
The fact that he showed up as well as the fact that he apologized to the voiceover community for the past business practices of VDC was surprising and impressive.
It was a healthy discourse. It got a little little tense here & there but Jay handled it with professionalism and dignity. I'm going keep an eye on Voices.com and see what happens...
Number 1: The People
I was shocked at the amount of attendees who had never done voiceover before that were willing to learn and have deep conversations with complete strangers.
It's very gratifying to see so many people who are new to the business that showed up, that were there to learn, that were kind and fun and curious and eager is really a testament to the culture of VO Atlanta.
Those are my top five takeaways from VO Atlanta. I'd love to hear what your VO Atlanta takeaways. Please put them in the comments!
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He's the VO Strategist, a voice over business & marketing coach and demo producer since 2011. Tom Dheere is also a voice actor with over 25 years of experience who has narrated just about every type of voiceover you can think of. When not voicing or talking about voicing, Tom produces the sci-fi comic book Agent 1.22.