Have you been particularly drawn to that genre in general? Did you have a particular connection to it? How did you land in with working with these fabulous folk artists?

Yeah, I mean, originally, my introduction to the conference and to participating in things like these actually started by being a musician and coming to the conference and showcasing and performing as a side musician and kind of going through that route with a few different artists.

And I mean, this is going back maybe almost 20 years at this point before I had any idea of what an industry role looked like or what that path could look like.

But that was my first introduction to it.

And I think really got more involved about probably 12 years ago, starting to work with the East Pointers who were at that time just starting out and we're a brand new band and we're all kind of figuring out together.

So in working as their manager, going to a lot of different events like these, particularly this conference, because there's just such a great focus on canadian development but also international development through the export program which always brings in such a great crowd it was a good introduction to this this world in a much bigger way we're so lucky to work with that band and still work with that band and they just had something kind of really unique when they were starting out so it opened up a lot of the doors for them really quickly but for me and for the rest of the team kind of provided a bit of a crash course into what this world looks like, what this community looks like, who the people are, who the players are, and what that means to be a part of it.

And I think compared to working in other genres and wearing a lot of different hats, this one probably, you know, it's that word community more than anything else that I think defines it.

But can you like actually kind of give us a little 101 about Factor? how that role is different let's say if you own a venue and do a concert you know like somebody who like does a house concert or somebody that owns a venue or owns a club