Mid Atlantic Voiceover Conference with Val Kelly

Val Kelly, the brains behind the Mid-Atlantic VoiceOver Conference, joins Anne Ganguzza in a special BOSS preview of MAVO. The BOSSES discuss Val's journey into voiceover, the challenges and lessons learned from organizing the conference, and the evolution of MAVO over the years. Her passion for the craft is evident as she discusses creating her own company to champion voice actors, offering a fascinating glimpse into the challenges and rewards of hosting a successful conference. The BOSSES shares insights on adapting to online events, the importance of providing educational resources for voice actors, and the exciting lineup of speakers and sessions planned for the upcoming conference. With a diverse lineup of guests, this year’s conference is a great event for anyone looking to elevate their skills and overcome the industry's evolving challenges. VO BOSSES can save $75 by using the code VOBOSS at checkout when purchasing your MAVO tickets

00:01 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey bosses, Anne Ganguzza here. Are you ready to take the next step in your voiceover career? At Anne Ganguzza Productions, I specialize in target marketing, coaching and demo production. That gets you booked. If you're thinking about elevating your performance or creating an awesome demo, check me out at anneganguzza.com. 

00:24 - Intro (Announcement) It's time to take your business to the next level, the boss level. These are the premier business owner strategies and successes being utilized by the industry's top talent today. Rock your business like a boss a VO boss. Now let's welcome your host, Anne Ganguzza. 

00:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Hey, hey everyone, welcome to the VO Boss Podcast. I'm your host, Anne Ganguzza, and today I am so excited and happy to be here with a very special guest voice actor and owner, president and very boss CEO of the Mid-Atlantic VoiceOver Conference, Val Kelly. Yay, hey, hi, val, it's so wonderful to have you here today. 

01:08 - Val Kelly (Guest) Oh, thanks so much for having me on your show. I really appreciate it. 

01:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Absolutely, and I'll tell you what I am so excited to talk to you today. Number one, first of all. So what does it take to be boss and CEO, not only just being a voice actor I know a lot of people that listen to the Boss podcast for us to be successful voice actors, but you're also an educator, which I love, and also to run a conference. Now my husband I'll just say my husband works, he's an event manager for multiple companies for many years and I know what it takes to run an event and it's no small task. So I'm excited to talk to you about yourself and what it took for you to become such a CEO of such a great event, and I'm excited. I'm going to let you talk, I swear I'm excited because it's my first year presenting with Amevo. So I'm very excited to do that this year and I'm already planning my wardrobe. 

02:03 - Val Kelly (Guest) Oh my gosh, same same. 

02:05 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) All right, what am I going to wear? So I'm very excited how many outfit switches. 

02:09 - Val Kelly (Guest) Am I going to have Right? 

02:11 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) exactly what are my costume changes. So let's first talk about you and how you got started in voiceover, because I know that you still are teaching, correct, yeah? 

02:23 - Val Kelly (Guest) So I'm doing a little bit of everything. Yeah, nothing wrong with that, I'll tell you are teaching, correct? 

02:26 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, so I'm doing a little bit of everything. Yeah, Nothing wrong with that. I'll tell you Nothing wrong with that, and especially if you're teaching, because that's just near and dear to my heart. 

02:33 - Val Kelly (Guest) Yeah, absolutely. So I got started in voiceover in. About 1999 was when I first kind of stuck my foot in it a little bit and I didn't really know what I was doing of course, because back then there were only a handful of people that were really booking work. So basically, I just took a class and you know they were like oh, you have a lot of talent. Of course, like that's. You know, the typical thing when you take a class. They're like, oh, you should definitely do this with your life, you know. 

03:06 And you're like, oh great, that's exactly what I wanted to hear. Thanks for telling me what I wanted to hear. And then I took a class with these people for six weeks and then I recorded my first demo after six weeks, which was totally crazy. I had no idea what I was doing and it was a commercial demo, so I also really just had no concept of the technique or anything about what I was supposed to be doing. 

03:30 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And probably even the industry, right? I mean being educators. Right, we know Like six weeks is really nothing. It may not have been every day for six weeks. Right that you were training. You were probably training once a week yeah. 

03:40 - Val Kelly (Guest) No, it was like once a week yeah exactly Exactly. 

03:44 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So yeah, being educators, we know it takes a while to acquire skills. 

03:57 - Val Kelly (Guest) Yeah for sure. But I mean fast forward to basically 2011, when I just had my second daughter and I never stopped thinking about voiceover and I just said to my husband you know, I really want to get back into this, like I feel like I have a lot of talent to offer to this industry and I just really want to try and make something of it. You know, not give up teaching because I had been teaching French for such a long time and that's a big part of who I am as a person. 

04:19 But I wanted to add this creative side that I have. I wanted to offer that as well. So I started training with a studio in New York and then just kept training with them for a couple of years with multiple coaches and things like that, and then it was probably 2010. 12 or 13 that I went to Voice Over Atlanta for the first time and I met so many people I think that's actually the first time that I met you and I was just so impressed by that whole event and everything like that, and so that really opened a lot of doors for me in the Voice Over world. I started booking more stuff after I went to that event and then a few more years passed and I just thought there's something here, like in this mid-Atlantic region, that's missing, you know, and I want to give back to the community in a way that's going to be helpful for other voice actors. 

05:16 So I was flying to France actually on a trip, and I said to my best friend on the flight I was like what if I started my own company? And he's like, okay, he's like maybe you should get some best friend on the flight. I was like what if I started my own company? And he's like okay, he's like maybe you should get some more sleep on this flight. And I was like, no, but seriously. And he's like, oh, can we talk about this when we get to France? So the whole trip I was, you know, working and everything like that. It was for work, but I was also thinking, like, you know, I have a lot of ideas, like maybe I could really pull this together. So in 2014, I started Minute Landing VoiceOver and it was a real eye-opener, that first event with 28 people showed up for it. 

05:56 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) you know Was your initial idea with your company? Was it to do specifically just the event, or was it just to start a company of your own to do voiceover? And it evolved. 

06:06 - Val Kelly (Guest) I think my idea was to do this event but also to see where else I could take it you know what else could be offered through this company and then also to like expand it and kind of umbrella my own voiceover work underneath it, which ultimately it's separate from who I am as a voice actor. But that was something I kind of had to figure out a little bit later. But the first event was really great, even though it was tiny. It was absolutely tiny and I just I remember like calling you up and being like and what am I going to do? Like there's only 20 people signed up for my event, and you're like okay, val, okay, okay, let's send some email blasts. 

06:45 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, I mean honestly, I think sometimes smaller is better. I have been at VO Atlanta since pretty much gosh every year, except for the first year, and there's something to be said. That's a big event and it got even bigger. But there's really something to be said for a small, intimate event and people can be overwhelmed by going to an event that is so large, especially those people starting out in the industry. So I think that your conference really serves a niche where it can make people feel more comfortable. It can be a first conference or it could be a 10th conference for them. There are just lots of people who feel comfortable in a smaller conference, a smaller environment. They feel that they get much more out of it. And so, yeah, with that first year being smaller, what did you learn? 

07:28 I guess my question would be is and having organized my own smaller events not huge events, but, and also having a husband who works in the event industry, I know how much work it takes, especially when you want it to be a great conference and you want people to get something out of it. It's a lot of work behind the scenes that a lot of people don't see. What they see is a ticket price. And they say, oh, all they do is multiply that ticket price by the amount of attendees. And they say, well, you're making a ton of money. I mean, I don't understand, why is it so expensive? And I'm thinking to myself, oh my gosh, there are so many, so many things. 

08:00 So let's talk about the evolution of this conference and things that you learned along the way. And had you planned an event before? I mean, did you love planning an event? Was it your first time? I mean, I liked planning my wedding and I thought, oh, I could do event planning. And then I'm like, well, you know what, it does take an awful lot of time. So what was going through your head when you're like, oh, it was fun to manage event, this is my first event. Was it your fifth event? 

08:26 - Val Kelly (Guest) Yeah, that was my first, I mean, as you said, planning a wedding, which I did plan, my own wedding and that was a big. I loved it, it was great and I was very, very good at planning my wedding which I felt like was a good preparation for the first event, you know, I said to my husband I was like it's like planning a wedding every single year, except no one ever gets married. You know. And he was like yeah, okay. 

08:51 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Except you to the event. You get married to your event. Yeah, yeah. 

08:56 - Val Kelly (Guest) So yeah, I mean, I learned so much after that first year. I just learned so much about the business side of everything that I didn't know. You know, that was one thing. I wish that I had had more business training before I decided to start, because I had to learn everything. I mean, I had my friend help me figure out how to build a website. And that took. I mean just the countless hours of work that go into just trying to do everything yourself because you're starting out and you can't afford to hire anyone. 

09:29 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Right, right. 

09:30 - Val Kelly (Guest) And so those are the biggest lessons I've learned, I would say from the beginning until now is just every year I learn something new about the business and how to manage the money side of things. And you know, like you said, people look at the price and they go oh, she's making a billion dollars. 

09:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And it's like actually actually no. 

09:51 - Val Kelly (Guest) Actually no because I have to pay for the venue, I have to pay for all the guest speakers, I have to pay for the marketing and all the stuff that goes into it. 

09:59 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And. 

09:59 - Val Kelly (Guest) I do a lot of it myself, just simply for the fact that I am a small company. It's a boutique you know sized company and we kind of evolved into that whole boutique world where I had this idea Maybe this happened about five years ago where I said someone said to me, why don't you call it a boutique event? 

10:19 And I was like, oh, that's cute you know, and that's how the whole thing kind of started and I was like, oh, that's cute, you know, and that's how the whole thing kind of started. And then I took it and really had to explain to people what does that even mean, you know? And just being a French teacher, it's like, well, when you think of a boutique, what do you think of? You think of like a high-end, smaller place where you're going shopping and you're buying super high-quality items and everything is planned down to to like every tiny detail you know, and that's kind of what I wanted to transfer to my event without being snobby about it, obviously, like you know. 

10:54 So that's kind of how I delivered that message to people is just like think of it as a high-end boutique. You know you're coming in. 

11:01 I'm hiring only the top tier talents that are in the industry, people that are not appearing at every single event every year because I want to offer something different, and once we had that, we kind of ran with in the conference as far as the number of people and just the organizational part of it and just understanding how things work. And then after that, 2018 was really great too. We skipped to 2017. And then in 2020, covid hit. So then we had to go from being what was supposed to be in-person event, switching it to an online event at the last minute, and that was totally crazy. 

11:48 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It was so nuts, I'm sure that was a whole new learning curve for you, because online events are so much different than in-person events and, plus, I don't know if you had already like secured a venue. At that point I mean because typically the planning for events like this it runs all year. That point I mean because typically the planning for events like this, it runs all year. Right, I mean, you're planning for this event, you're planning the next year before the one is even done, basically. 

12:12 - Val Kelly (Guest) So when we had to take it online, luckily because it was COVID and out of your control type of scenario I was able to figure it out in enough time to say to the venue we're canceling. And then I took it to a virtual studio in Baltimore and I had someone do like the live streaming for me because. I had no idea what I was doing. 

12:37 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And I can vouch for that because myself doing mostly I mean after 2015, I stopped doing in-person events at my home and I started doing everything online and that live streaming. Back in the day, it hadn't really evolved or developed, and so there were lots of live streaming technologies that were just coming out, and so I literally yeah, I had to learn it myself, and then I also hired somebody to help me live stream it, and then I also wanted to do a hybrid event. So it was crazy having people at my house plus live streaming it online, and so that alone and especially if you want it to be a quality event right, that live stream you have to have good cameras, you have to have the ability for people to be able to switch between people that are presenting to the audience and just to make it engaging. Otherwise, one of the biggest complaints about COVID right and online teaching I'm sure you taught online as well was the fact that it was hard to engage, and I know that even today, people like they're fatigued by Zoom. 

13:37 I still love it because I feel like Zoom filled a void for, let's say, just people that couldn't physically be together. I mean it was the next best thing. However, when you're trying to educate over an online platform, it really does become difficult or harder to engage people, and so running an online event you've got to be that much more paying attention to detail so that you can put on a great online event, and that is not a cheap thing to do either. To hire somebody for the cameras and that knows the technical backend to do the live streaming, to make the recordings right, you probably offer the recordings to be available for people who couldn't attend every session, and all that backend work on the website is crazy. It's crazy. 

14:22 So I have a lot of respect for the fact that you were able to turn that around. And so, what year is it this year for Mavo? How many years has it been that you've been running? 

14:31 - Val Kelly (Guest) So we've been in business since 2014. So, this is 10 years in business and it's actually our ninth conference this year, wow. 

14:39 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So there's a lot to be said for that as well, for the longevity of it. I mean the fact that you know you didn't give up after the first year and you weren't frustrated, right, because it's tough, I mean, and you learn as you go. So you must have a passion for this conference and a passion for putting together something great, educationally resourceful for the community, which I, as a teacher with a teacher heart, I can totally appreciate and respect. That because it's one of the reasons why I started the VO Boss podcast. It's one of the reasons why I did the VO Peeps networking groups, because I wanted to be able to provide a resource. And I believe that that's where your heart is in terms of wanting to provide a resource for the community. 

15:18 Because I know it's not about the money and I always try to strive to remind people that venue costs are not cheap. I mean my gosh especially when you're talking about wanting to host someplace. Decent rentals of ballrooms and just sites are so expensive it's along the lines of like tens of thousands of dollars, I would imagine to do that and especially when you're doing it over multiple days and then you're trying to provide reasonably priced rooms for people, and especially when you're keeping it on a smaller scale. It must be harder to find a venue that wants to work on a smaller scale with you. Is that correct? Or they get more expensive. 

16:00 - Val Kelly (Guest) I think it's not so much the venue that is not willing to work with you on a smaller scale, it's just the difficult balance, I think is, if you're saying, okay, we're only going to have 120 to 150 people, well, the venue isn't going to lower its price because of how many people you have, because they its price because of how many people you have, because they don't actually care how many people you have. 

16:24 What you end up paying for is the meals that you provide. So that's where the big, big expense comes in with any type of food that you offer, because it's based on how many people, and so it's really a difficult challenge of saying like, okay, if we're going to keep it this small, then we actually have to raise the price, so that I can cover all of my costs and at first people were like whoa, what the heck. 

16:50 And I was like guys, like you have to understand, like if you want me to hire good people to come in, like great people to come in and speak at this event, they won't do it for free and nor would I want them to, you know. So it's like that's the biggest. Biggest expense beyond the venue is the guest speakers. 

17:10 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) You know Sure sure, I know how hard it is to sell to this industry because I mean, I sell events myself, I sell coaching services and demos, and so you're selling to an industry where I think we all wish we had more money to spend. 

17:23 I mean, I think that's just human nature, I wish we had more money to spend. But especially when you're talking about a creative industry where it is their own business, they're all their own CEOs, they're all entrepreneurs and everybody's kind of just as they go learning the ropes of the business, of it all, it astounds me how much people are willing to spend for, let's say, performance classes, but yet business classes, which I think is imperative for us as voice actors and businesses to be able to make a profit right in order to support, support your habit, support your business, to pay the mortgage, to feed the family, that kind of thing. And so business skills are essential. And I know that your conference in the beginning it was very much geared towards, I would say, more animation and character, but you've evolved it now, especially because I'm involved, you've evolved it to really include many more genres. So let's talk a little bit about what you're offering this year and maybe last year, what you've done to kind of broaden the offerings of the conference. 

18:31 - Val Kelly (Guest) Yeah, I mean, I think what we had to do was really gauge over the years what the level of interest was with. You know, everybody loves a good animation guest speaker because they're so interesting and everybody wants to work for well, maybe not everybody wants to work for Disney Channel but you know you know, and so that's kind of always where my creative mind went and like where do my interests lie? 

18:58 a little bit selfishly, but not really, because it's like I know a lot of people are also interested in that. So I would always try to go with a keynote that was somehow involved with animation, just so. 

19:10 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It's a big seller. I know that, even A big seller. Yeah, it's a big seller. 

19:15 - Val Kelly (Guest) So then last year we had Serena Irwin who is a casting director and she casts freelance for a lot of different studios and has been on Spongebob and she's amazing like, and I really tried to find somebody that was kind of off the grid a little bit for last year because I wanted to find a less mainstream type of person kind of, I guess I would say. And so it was really successful to have somebody who is a casting director, because getting that viewpoint for people like in the animation world, what are you actually looking for? You? 

19:52 know, so for me that was very interesting, for a lot of people was very interesting. And then there have been certain years when we've offered a lot of you know know audio book stuff and it's not to say that we're not ever going to offer audio book guest speakers again. But I felt like for this year I wanted to kind of go in a different direction completely and I feel like having Tim Friedlander as the keynote is such an important thing because Tim is doing such amazing work for NAVA and the National. 

20:23 Association of Voice Actors and I just have so much respect for him as a person and as an actor that I just felt like it was like the natural. That's what my creative mind was telling me to go in that direction for this year. 

20:36 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) It's very relevant to the times in our industry. He's done a lot of work with NAava, along with Karin and the board, and they've done a lot of really wonderful work and so they're going to bring a lot of value, I believe, to your conference, absolutely. So let's talk about who else you have this year that might be different besides me, I mean, but we'll talk about me in a minute. I mean, we can talk about you. 

20:58 Well, I'm just super excited to kind of bring what I consider my specialties all of the genres, the long format narration, all the stuff that I think right now is really it's important to be an actor, no matter what genre we're talking, whether it's animation, whether it's promo. I mean it's important to be an actor, and even more so now, with all of the synthetic voice, the AI stuff that's out there. It's more important than ever that we hone our skills as actors, and so I want to bring that aspect to the conference to help attendees that are looking to really up their game in the narration, which is a large part of the non-broadcast market out there, and so I'm happy to be there doing. Do you call it a breakout session or a session? 

21:45 - Val Kelly (Guest) A mastery session. 

21:46 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) A mastery session. 

21:47 - Val Kelly (Guest) Yeah, the three-hour sessions are mastery ones and I'm so excited about especially about your e-learning one, because that's a genre for me that I've always wanted to explore and I haven't enough, and you should. 

22:00 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) And you should because you're a teacher. 

22:03 - Val Kelly (Guest) Yeah, it seems like a natural thing to kind of dive into that world a little bit. So I'm very excited, I'm very honored to have you this year and I think it's going to be really great. It's been a long time coming to actually be able to invite you and everything like that, and so I'm very very excited. 

22:20 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Yeah, so I'm going to be doing two mastery sessions one on acting for narration, and that's all types of narration corporate, medical, all of the geeky narrations explainer and then also the other aspect of the narration genres, which would be e-learning or training. So I'm very excited to have one of each of those to address all those topics. And so, guys, in order to do this, you need to sign up for MAVO, and so hopefully you'll sign up and then you'll look for my mastery classes, but you've got a lot of amazing offerings this year for MAVO, so you want to talk about who else you have for mastery sessions. 

23:02 - Val Kelly (Guest) I mean, we have so many great people on board. I'll just highlight a few of them because there's just so many. But Jessica Blue is coming and she's doing some sessions on dubbing live action dubbing and I'm so excited about that because I've never had the chance to meet her in person and we've never offered sessions on dubbing before at Mavo. 

23:21 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) That's great. 

23:22 - Val Kelly (Guest) So it's something brand new and very exciting for people. So she's amazing, so that will be really great. Ever Oliver is coming and offering a special teen program on Saturday only of the event, so that's for teens from ages 13 to 17. 

23:37 Great and he's doing like animation, video game and commercial voice acting with them, so it'll be a great opportunity for kids to experience working with Everett, which is amazing and so much fun. Also, luanne Regis is coming and she's a casting director and she used to be a talent agent, and so she's going to be offering some great sessions at the conference as well. Just giving her from a casting director's perspective of what are we really looking for and I think that's what everybody really wants to know- is like what do I? 

24:12 need to do to actually book this. And then, also really exciting, we have Daniel Ross, who is Donald Duck. He's an Emmy Award winning actor and it's so exciting to have him offering a mastery session on animation and making bold choices, which is so, so important in the character world of trying to book those roles when you have so much competition with everybody trying to also audition for them. 

24:40 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So, yeah, I mean, there's so many people. 

24:43 - Val Kelly (Guest) It's a long list. 

24:45 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) So how can bosses sign up for MAVO this year? Where do they go? What's the website? All that stuff. 

24:52 - Val Kelly (Guest) Yeah, so wwwmidatlanticvocom, and they're going to click on MAVO events at the top tab and it will bring up all the events that we have going on. We have some like happy hours that go on virtually beforehand, so it 'll mostly be like every other week from now until the actual conference takes place and people can come to those happy hours online for free or they can like make a donation to Mabo if they want to. That's always an option like just to help support the company, but they can also certainly come for free and we're happy to have everybody there to just like network and chat. But yeah, everything is on the website the schedule and all about all the guest speakers and yeah, Fantastic, and you're going to be offering a special discount just for bosses. 

25:43 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) For boss listeners out there, talk a little bit about that and how they can achieve that discount. 

25:49 - Val Kelly (Guest) Yeah. So for the VO boss listeners, we're going to offer a $75 discount and you can just go to the website and click on Get Tickets and when you go to checkout you're going to just enter the code VOBOSS and it will take that $75 off for you on full weekend tickets. 

26:08 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) Awesome, that is so helpful, and guys don't forget to sign up for my mastery sessions and I'm also doing is it an hour long session too, which is for everybody at the conference. Oh yeah, there's a general session too, so that would be really great as well. Great Well, val, it has been such a pleasure chatting with you about Mayvo. I'm so excited and of course I'll just continue to plan my wardrobe. 

26:33 - Val Kelly (Guest) Same same but. 

26:34 - Anne Ganguzza (Host) I'm so excited because you do have a wonderful lineup and I'm excited, of course, to see all of my friends and colleagues again. Wonderful lineup, and I'm excited, of course, to see all of my friends and colleagues again and I'm excited to work with the amazing talent that I know is going to be there in this boutique, wonderful, intimate setting for Mavo. So thanks again for joining me and I'm going to give a great big shout out to our sponsor, ipdtl. You too can connect and network like bosses. Find out more at IPDTLcom Val. Thanks again, bosses. You guys have an amazing week and I'll see you next week. All right, take care, bye-bye. 

27:12 - Intro (Announcement) Join us next week for another edition of VO Boss with your host, anne Ganguza, and take your business to the next level. Sign up for our mailing list at vo boss comm and receive exclusive content, industry revolutionizing tips and strategies and new ways to rock your business like a boss. Redistribution with permission. Coast to coast connectivity via IPD TL.