OHIO Music Industry Summit continues to draw students, alumni and professionals

The premier music industry conference of the Midwest returned to Ohio University for its eighth consecutive year. The OHIO Music Industry Summit (MIS) transforms the Athens campus into a music industry hub where artists, industry leaders and music lovers of all ages and backgrounds congregate for informative panels, compelling interviews, networking and learning opportunities, performances and more.

MIS 2026 recently took place on April 14-16, with both in-person and virtual attendance options. The conference hosted several prominent artists and music industry professionals including harmony-heavy folk-rock band The Crane Wives; songwriter and producer Jake Ewald of Slaughter Beach, Dog and Modern Baseball; and Grammy-nominated indie-pop band Lucius.

Artist keynote conversations are always a main attraction for the Summit and this year was no different. Attendees packed the Baker University Center Ballroom to hear The Crane Wives, Ewald and Lucius delve into their careers, answer audience questions and provide unique insights about performing, songwriting and more.

During his keynote conversation with Grammy-nominated producer Chris Messina, Ewald gave attendees a peek behind the curtain of songwriting, taking the audience through his process and even demonstrating how to write a short song before their eyes. He also performed several stripped back, acoustic versions of songs from his folk-rock project Slaughter Beach, Dog bringing the conversation off the page and into the room.

On the final day of the Summit, Lucius continued to draw large crowds during the closing artist keynote. Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig sat down with Managing Editor of Stereogum and Ohio Alumnus Chris DeVille for a wide-ranging dialogue on the creative life: what it takes to sustain a band, build a body of work, collaborate across the industry, and stay true to an artistic vision over the long haul.

From highly anticipated artist keynote conversations to more intimate breakout sessions, workshops and mentoring roundtables, the 2026 Summit brought more than 70 industry leaders and artists to Athens, providing attendees the opportunity to learn from mentors who have had tremendous success in music. Breakout sessions, mentoring roundtables and workshops also included sessions by Ohio University alumni returning to campus to share their insider music industry knowledge.

Brian Muehlenkamp is one of many Bobcat alumni who returned to campus to share their perspective. Muehlenkamp graduated from OHIO in 2012, and he currently works as a product manager at Ticketmaster with a focus on building ticket sales software. He led a breakout session and shared advice as a mentor during roundtable discussions. This is his fifth time attending MIS.

"I am focusing on practical foundations of using AI tools for students. For this group I'm going to focus on creative outputs that help boost your career, like building your own website," said Muehlenkamp. "I love talking to students and lending my experience. When I was a student MIS didn't exist yet, and this is invaluable. The fact that Josh [Antonuccio] put this together is incredible. To get all these people here, all these people who were successful in the industry organized and talking. It's certainly a great opportunity for students."

The Ohio University Music Industry Summit is notably free for students and educators at any institution, as well as OHIO alumni, reflecting the University's commitment to connecting students with industry leaders and expanding opportunities for learning beyond the classroom. The Summit can be extremely helpful for students like freshman Anna Barrett who recently changed majors. Barrett is now a journalism student looking to get started and find her voice. She found the opportunity to speak with professional music journalists at MIS very valuable.

"I was actually a computer science major, and I'm still a computer science minor, but I switched to journalism because it's also something I'm passionate about," said Barrett. "I think the Summit is awesome, I looked through the old event schedules and they're so cool. I didn't know about this, I didn't know this happened. It's right up my alley, especially the music journalism aspect."

Barrett said she found the whole Summit experience amazing. In addition to gaining valuable insight about a potential career path she was also able to enjoy seeing Ewald of Slaughter Beach, Dog perform at both ROAR Records and during his keynote conversation.

The OHIO Music Industry Summit has become the largest music industry conference in the Midwest, and attendees and community members were clearly impressed with the amount, and variety, of artists and professionals who visited Athens to participate in the Summit. As always, all who attended were given a holistic dive into the music industry.

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