MakerFest
Introduction
MakerFest started with a simple idea: create a place where makers, artists, entrepreneurs, performers, educators, families, and curious people from across the Upper Cumberland could all show up in the same place and discover what was being created in their own community. Turning that idea into an actual event meant building nearly everything from the ground up. I developed the event concept and identity, recruited and coordinated nearly 100 vendors and participants, booked 10 main-stage performers, worked with sponsors and community partners, organized volunteers and demonstrations, developed family programming, managed marketing and promotion, built schedules, planned site logistics, and helped keep all of those moving pieces pointed in the same direction.
MakerFest became as much an exercise in organizational leadership as event production. Vendors needed information. Sponsors needed value. Performers needed schedules. Volunteers needed direction. The public needed a reason to show up. And once the gates opened, plans inevitably met reality—which meant solving problems quickly without allowing the experience behind the scenes to become the experience guests saw.
Conclusion
MakerFest is one of the clearest examples of how I work across disciplines. Brand strategy, marketing, partnerships, logistics, creative direction, communication, and leadership weren’t separate assignments handed to different departments—they were interconnected parts of one project that had to work together on a very real deadline.
The end product wasn’t simply a campaign or an event identity. It was a functioning regional event involving nearly 100 vendors, 10 performers, sponsors, volunteers, demonstrations, family programming, and hundreds of individual details that had to come together in one place, at one time, for one audience.