In the second part of our series on arts & entertainment in the time of COVID-19, we spoke with Whitney Jefferson about the state of live entertainment. Whitney is a second-year Master of Entertainment Industry Management Student here at Heinz College, and she spent the summer doing research on how live entertainment venues are handling the pandemic with the AMT lab.

Whitney’s passion for the entertainment industry began when she was a teenager. She decided to attend Albright College to get a bachelor degree in music industry studies. This degree equipped Whitney with the understanding of the industry she wanted to work in, but she wanted to know how the music industry worked with film and television.

During her graduate studies, Whitney has had the opportunity to intern with Calliope, a non-profit concert promoter, the Arts Management and Technology Lab, and Trend: PR, Branding, & Social Media. Whitney is interested in music licensing and live entertainment. She’s excited to see how the reliance on virtual and augmented reality for concerts during Covid-19 will impact physical concerts and licensing in the future.

The Arts Management & Technology (AMT) Laboratory, a research center of Carnegie Mellon University’s Master of Arts Management Program, serves as an exchange, a catalyst for innovative ideas, and a conduit for knowledge circulating at the intersection of arts, management, and technology.