Jill Lerner came to Public Relations as a job through her love of helping people succeed. She began by doing PR for various unknown bands and her current job with James H Soars Media Services is Tour Promotion, which involves raising the numbers of people attending a gig and making those gigs a success. Jillʼs personal motto is: “If at first you donʼt succeed, try, try, try again”. She feels this has been so important in her journey and has enabled her to get to places she would never have dreamed. For Jill, seeing young, up and coming musicians being appreciated for their talent is wonderful. She believes itʼs an honour to help musicians/bands raise their profiles and be successful.

Chris Clark is a professional musician specialising in the bass guitar, he has been playing and performing for over 15 years. He has appeared at many festivals in the UK including Reading and Leeds, Download and Mad Cool. He has performed live for bands and artists across the globe, from club shows and tours to arenas in America, Europe, India and China. Chris holds a BSC honours in Music Technology. He teaches bass at college level and has recorded bass for artists and clients signed to Warner, Universal and many others. He has a string of releases and tours lined up with his band Daytime TV scheduled this year.

Bob Barrett is an active session and touring drummer, with over 20 yearsʼ experience, spanning across multiple fields in both the independent and major music industries.Whilst touring extensively around the world, he also co-founded and ran a D.I.Y record label, tour managed both nationally and internationally, ran a screen-printing and merchandise business, worked in digital marketing and PR for national album campaigns and currently co-owns a graphic design studio. He is also a Lecturer at BIMM, teaching a class focussing on the Music Industry. As well as a workshop leader for a number of charity organisations.

Neil Pearson is a manager, project manager, and artist-development specialist working in the UK and internationally, with a particular interest in singer/songwriter, folk and the wider roots genres.While currently working mainly as a manager and project manager, he programs The Hive’s folk and roots shows, and was the programmer for 400 capacity venue in London for 6 years, and has programmed various festivals over the last 15 years. He has presented over 750 artists in a range of spaces in the UK, US, and Canada.

Izzy Ali-Maclachlan’s grown-up alter-ego is Dr. Islah Ali-MacLachlan. He is course director of the sound engineering degrees at Birmingham City University and holds a PhD in computational analysis of folk music. He has sound engineered many festivals and gigs over his career and sound engineers the folk gigs at The Hive. He has taught live and studio engineering techniques to hundreds of students, helping them to bring science and artistry together. As an engineer, musician and occasional promoter, he is able to offer a rounded perspective on each of the jobs, and the necessary interactions required to make a great gig.