‘Puts Montana on the map’: UM to offer new entertainment management major

The fireworks display at the end of the Zootown Festival in Missoula Saturday night was especially impactful for University of Montana student Marley Miller.

As staffing director for the festival, Miller hired 90 people and managed about 40 to 50 on site during the two-day event, including about 20 UM students and recent graduates.

He said the festival organizers’ top brass, including one of the cofounders, in jest called him the “big boss” for the weekend.

“I’m very lucky,” he said. “I really grinded to get to this spot, and had to prove myself, obviously, to even be considered for this.”

Miller said he used what he learned through his courses in UM’s entertainment management certificate program, including logistics planning, to get through the weekend.

Montana’s Board of Regents, a body that oversees higher education within the Montana University System, approved the expansion of the program into a new major – “Entertainment, Events and Sports Management” within UM’s College of Business – during its May meeting.

The new major will be available for students to join starting this fall and Miller said he is “ecstatic.”

“It puts Montana on the map, as there’s only a handful of programs from the country that are similar or that allow this type of education,” Miller said. “It’s going to be a draw for students across the country who are wanting to pursue an education in this field.”

Entertainment production, from film and television to music, has been expanding in Montana in recent years. Media company Story House Inc. is planning to develop a 47-acre production studio in Missoula, the company said in May.

“This program is being launched on a unique spot in Montana’s timeline, to where students can be at the forefront of this field,” Miller said.

As the entertainment industry grows, UM is “committed to preparing highly skilled, well-trained and workforce-ready graduates to meet the evolving demands of this dynamic sector,” said Suzanne Tilleman, dean of UM’s College of Business, in a statement.

Spokesperson for the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education, Galen Hollenbaugh, said in a statement the board is pleased to see “innovative, relevant degree programs come to fruition that meet student demand and the state’s workforce needs.”

The son of two musicians, Miller first started out at UM on the pre-med track, but three weeks later he switched to the College of Business to pursue the entertainment certificate.

“It’s a world I’m comfortable in. I go home and my dad has his own studio and stuff,” he said. “It feels right to me.”

He’s a DJ, playing local shows and most recently his first festival in Kalispell. Performing as an artist helps him understand performers’ perspective, he said.

“Being able to be on the artist side obviously really helps me on the more administrative side,” he said.

Miller’s tech startup, StarSync Studio, is also gaining momentum, he said, taking home the top prize at UM’s John Ruffatto Startup Challenge last year and was a featured startup at the Vancouver Web Summit earlier this year. The Canadian conference is one of the most revered in the world, he said.

Right now, artists aren’t able to collaborate in real time using the most common software to produce music, Miller said, but his company is looking to make that possible. He compared it to the collaboration that a Google Doc allows, just in a different medium: music. He hopes to go to market in the next year or two.

“My parents are definitely happy I’m not making being a musician ‘Plan A,’ but going on the more business side of things,” he said.

Zootown isn’t the first festival he’s been involved with as he’s worked as a production coordinator for Under the Big Sky Festival in Whitefish for two years.

Zootown Festival was held at the Missoula County Fairgrounds Friday and Saturday and featured headliners Kacey Musgraves and Hozier.

Miller said he doesn’t get starstruck anymore, and didn’t get to see more than 5 minutes of any one set. But he did get a chance to catch Mt. Joy on the Trailhead stage for a few minutes, which he said was “awesome.”

People don’t understand how many moving parts are involved in a festival, he said, with about 30 to 40 companies working during the event.

“…then trying to coordinate between all of those different companies to make it all work in a cohesive way,” he said. “It can get really tricky fast.”

One of the challenges at Zootown included weather, where Miller’s objective was to make sure his team was getting breaks and staying warm, bringing people scanning tickets at the entrance of the event hot coffee and ponchos.

“There’s not a lot you can do about weather,” he said.

It was important to make sure his workers felt supported, but also make sure the festival attendees had a good experience with the people he hired. He said a win for him was everyone showing up during a holiday weekend and so far people want to come back to work at the festival next year.

“I really wanted to be a boss that made sure that everyone was getting cut and getting breaks when they wanted to maybe see their favorite artist,” he said. “It’s not a traditional job, so just making sure that they are feeling very happy about what they’re doing.”