Before I get into this, you have to understand that the music industry(especially for those working behind the scenes) is about 90% connections and luck. It’s all about who you know, and being in the right place at the right time. That being said! this is how I got the internship and merch opportunity:

For the internship, it isn’t like you think, like a college internship at a record label getting coffee and shit like that. I was at a show for the band Mission Hill, and went and hung out in the sound booth the whole time, watching the sound engineer do all the mixing. When he was finished, I talked to him a lot, told him my intentions of knowing as much as I could and getting as far as I could in the music industry, and expressed my interest in sound engineering. By the end of the show, we had talked a lot about pretty much everything, and he gave me his business card with his email. I started emailing him and eventually he invited me down to his business location, which is technically an office attached to a warehouse full of audio, lighting, staging, backline, video, special effect, etc equipment so big it takes up a block in a city. He started by giving me a tour of the warehouse, and now he’s been taking me in and teaching me everything I’ll ever need to know, and inviting me to shows so I can learn how a live show gets set up and worked from start to finish. He’s also introducing me to an artist management cooperation in the area to help me out as much as possible. With this, I pretty much just made myself as likable as possible, as easy to work with as possible, and the best student possible so he wants to keep me around and spread around a positive word about me.

As for the merch, someone that I have a lot of mutual friends with started up an artist management and booking agency type thing that puts on a lot of shows with a lot of local bands. I messaged him on facebook asking him if he knew any bands who needed someone to work merch for them, to which he said no, but then told me there were about 10 shows that his agency is putting on all over the area, and I’d be welcome to sell merch at all of them. So on the 13th I’m going to the first of the shows to talk to him to see what he wants done, things like that. I’m just hoping that this merch opportunity will lead to a bunch more…