On Monday May 5th, a life was changed in Columbus, Ohio at a Krewella concert. Bethany Marks, who did merchandising for Krewella on their Get Wet Live Tour, was in the crowd chatting with a young male about how much he loved Krewella and how they helped to turn his life around. They are his inspiration. She asked him if he wanted to meet Jahan and Yasmine (Kris was not in attendance) and tell them his story. He stood there in shock with his mouth wide open and embraced Marks in a tear-jerking hug. Giving fans an opportunity to meet their biggest inspirations is just one way that Marks hopes to leave an impact on the music industry.
Even though she had no prior experience working merchandise or really even in the music industry at all, Marks was asked by Krewella’s management to travel with them on tour. Bethany was just simply a passionate fan who was given the opportunity of a lifetime. She spent just over 10 weeks with Krewella, Seven Lions, and Candyland selling merchandise at just about every show on tour. Even though she had to leave her husband behind at home for an extended period of time, she cherished every moment of this unique experience.
While on tour, Marks had to deal with a change in merchandise partners. The first person she worked with ended up leaving the tour and needed to spend time at home. Therefore, Krewella brought on someone else to sell merchandise with Marks. At first, she was a little anxious because she became really close with the first guy and didn’t want someone else to come in and step on her toes. However, she ended up giving him a chance and developed a flawless friendship with her new merchandise partner.
Currently Marks is not on tour and is looking for work, preferably in the music industry. While she loves attending shows as a fan, she prefers working them instead because she is constantly meeting new people and establishing close relationships with everyone she meets. Even though it has been a struggle to find other merchandise positions, she is still hopeful and wants to follow the path that God has planned for her.
Besides music and family, her faith in God is her biggest passion. This faith has helped her to maintain a positive attitude throughout both her successes and failures and to help others do the same. We see the courage of Marks to do things out of her comfort zone and her determination to love herself and others as inspiring. She believes that wherever life takes her, it is imperative that she makes a positive impact on everyone that she meets and changes the world one person at a time.
She has provided us with three points of advice that have helped her both on her overall journey in life and while she was on tour with world-renowned artists.
1) Be ready to work hard – To get ahead in the music industry or in anything for that matter, be prepared to work harder than the person next to you and the person next to them and everyone else. Nobody is prepared to just hand you everything you want, you have to earn it.
2) Have patience – Most great things, especially success, do not usually happen overnight. Things take time and you might even fail once or twice, but if you work hard and be patient, good things will happen.
3) Treat everyone you meet with respect – The electronic music industry in particular is really not that big. It seems as if everyone knows each other. The last thing you want to do is disrespect someone or be unprofessional. Word can spread and it can hurt you. If you burn a bridge with one person, more than likely you’ve just burnt a bridge with several. Respect is something I’ve found that our generation seriously lacks and that’s a shame. If you respect others, it shows them you are a person of great character and it will put you leaps and bounds in front of the person standing next to you.
Check out next week’s feature!
