Shannon Carr dreamed of organizing music festivals since she was young.
A lifelong music festival goer, her love for music started at Sea Hear Now, an annual festival in her home state of New Jersey.
So, when it came time to choose where to attend college, Carr knew there was no better fit for her than Temple University’s School of Sport, Tourism and Hospitality Management (STHM) where she earned her degree in event and entertainment management as a member of the class of 2025.
Few other schools even offered degree programs specifically for events management, and she felt like none of them were as good as Temple. Carr started out as a hospitality major but switched during her first year when the event and entertainment management major was first introduced.
At Temple, Carr became the director of industry relations for STHM’s Event Planning Association throughout her junior and senior year. She was also director of organizations and relations for Eta Sigma Delta, an honors fraternity for students in hospitality and events management.
Carr has loved her time at STHM and feels like it has well prepared her for a career in events management.
“It’s a great program,” she says. “Professors know so many people and have so much experience. Make sure to connect with them, they’ll set you up for success.”
Something great about STHM, she says, is that it helped her discover different types of events that she didn’t even know existed. Through her time in the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA), she discovered that while she loved music festivals, her career passion is in corporate events planning. She enjoys the steadier day-to-day work around corporate events and is excited by the opportunity to travel for work.
Speaking of PCMA, Carr describes it as “the best thing to happen to her at Temple.” Through PCMA, she has attended two event planning conferences, one in San Diego and one in Houston, and landed her senior internship with ISPOR, a professional society for health economics and outcomes research.
“Getting to meet my future boss in person, at a conference, and really learning about the work they do instead of just applying through LinkedIn or something made it easier to form an actual connection,” Carr says. “It made me realize that the job was a great fit for me!”
(Photo courtesy of Shannon Carr)
At ISPOR, Carr works on the meeting content team, where she organizes speakers, communicates with presenters and coordinates logistics for various international pharmaceutical conferences. And she loves it!
“I never thought I’d be working in anything other than music festivals,” she explains. “But I’m happy to have found ISPOR through PCMA.”
Her advice for anyone looking to begin a career in events is to be open-minded and say yes to everything.
“It’s not a field where you’re going to be comfortable all the time,” she says.
“Opportunities are everywhere—don’t say no and just go out of your comfort zone. And be open to everything. After starting school wanting to work in music festivals, I can’t believe how much I ended up liking corporate events. Try new things and see what happens!”
After graduation, Carr hopes to continue working within the health and pharmaceutical events industry. And though she won’t be working at them, she’ll still be going to as many music festivals as possible!