Through the creator realm, you may have encountered the charismatic and energetic spirit that comes from Megan Fuhrman. A multifaceted creator, from crafting a unique experience through her persona, making her presence memorable through her own brand or The Festival Babes, to bringing insight to curious minds wanting to join the music industry… Within the EDM community, Fuhrman’s work and personality do not go unnoticed.
With an impressive resume of working with festivals like Groove Cruise, Bonnaroo, Deep Tropics, WAKAAN, and more, Fuhrman has garnered a massive reach through The Festival Babes imprint and her own personal brand. Whether you have seen her running activations at a festival or watching her personality shine in the crowd, Fuhrman has become a household name in the EDM community.
The Electric Hawk got the opportunity to sit down with the established creator to chat about her beginnings, the misconceptions that come with being a creator (or being in the industry in general), and the advice she has for inspiring creators who want to make their mark in the community. Learn all this and more through the conversation below.
In Conversation with Megan Fuhrman
seradopa: You’ve been a part of the electronic community for quite some time, being an avid shuffler and attending multiple festivals. What would you say is your favorite aspect of the community that allows you to continue having joy and excitement?
Megan Fuhrman: I’ve been attending music festivals since 2016. My first festival was RARE Orlando. It was with Carnage as the headliner, Marshmellow, some trap artists, 4B – it was very old school. It was great. But I’ve always loved electronic music, especially in high school!
I listened to a lot of Flume and Skrillex. You probably can relate. My first big festival was EDC Orlando 2016 and I was just instantly hooked. I have found that community is the reason why I always continue to have this spark of joy and happiness.
When you are constantly surrounded by the most giving, accepting, and loving people, you start to inherit those qualities yourself. Then you become that person – you become more loving, giving, and a better person. I didn’t have that growing up, didn’t have those friends growing up. I have a very loving family, and I’m very close to my family, but when it came to friendships, I never had that. Never really had good friends that were accepting and loving.
And I tried to fit myself into that but I never could. It just never, never worked out. So I was kind of a loner. But when I went to college, I started making more friends, and they were like, “You should come to EDC with us“, or this and that with us. And I finally found friends in this community – people who actually accepted me for who I was – and didn’t make me feel like I had to be somebody else.
And I believe that’s what keeps that spirit alive for me.
I hope that everyone can experience that one day. My best friends are people I’ve met at festivals. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve met people just one time, and now I talk to them every day, and it’s because of the experience that we had at a music festival.
And that’s what keeps me in this community!
seradopa: You are absolutely a busy bee with a lot on your plate! How do you balance everything honestly – especially with how hectic the industry can be?
Megan Fuhrman: I actually plan on making a series soon about burnout and how to go through it. Honestly, I used to experience burnout a lot, and I feel recently I haven’t and this is why.
I make a couple of different schedules, so I do it in my notes on my phone. Highly recommend everyone does this, but I make a daily and a weekly schedule that keeps me super aligned. I categorize it as a big to-do list and just a running list.
Actually, in your notes app, you can check off things. So I have daily personal tasks, and then daily The Festival Babes tasks. And then I have daily content creation tasks, for personal use if I need. That gets updated every Sunday. Then my daily tasks get updated right before I go to bed!
“I’ve finally learned how to set boundaries! And it’s not just boundaries with people – it’s boundaries with myself. I’m a workaholic.”
It’s hard when you’re so passionate – you want to get it all done! So what I’ve done for myself is I work during the morning. I work 9 to 12, or 9 to 1, and then I have a break. From 1 to 3, it’s my break time. Today was a little different because I made this interview a priority, but during that time, I do something for myself. Whether I’ll go for a walk, go to the gym, or cook myself lunch, I will put work away. Goodbye for two hours – I don’t even look at it! I’ll take that time to respond to personal text messages or phone calls. Then I’ll come back to work.
I’ll work from 3 to 7 and do the same thing – phone on do not disturb. I do things for myself, everything that needs to get done personally. And then I go to bed at a good time! Overall it’s just setting boundaries so that I don’t have to do everything today if I don’t have to – it’s okay.
But I also allow myself to have fun, because you have to. I’m okay with allowing some of those boundaries to go away as long as everything gets done. Making a schedule, learning to say no, and setting boundaries, help me balance everything on my plate.
seradopa: As someone who is active, what may some misconceptions of yourself that people probably don’t fully understand as being a big voice in this community?
Megan Fuhrman: In reality, I do so much on-site, it’s insane. For example, at festivals, when we bring on a content creator team or an influencer team, I’m the person in charge. From putting together these content houses, campsites, hotels – all these options for our creators to make sure that they have the best experience possible.
I help bring on these partnerships and sponsorships to work with different brands. Whether they’re clothing or drink sponsors, I have to be that go-to person to communicate with them. From scheduling and conducting artist interviews to preparing for those and making sure whoever is on time for those interviews.
It’s organizing and running meetups. Being there at meetups, making sure our creators are there at the meetups, making sure our media is there, and that they know exactly where it is, and that we’re active, and bringing that community there again. Keeping in touch with the creators on-site to make sure everything’s okay.
Everyone asks us a gazillion questions on-site. This is why the past couple of events I’ve been going to, I’ve gone completely sober. I can’t do it if I’m not in the right headspace. I can have my fun elsewhere, but when I’m working on these events, I have to be on my A game. I’ve definitely found that to be extremely effective.
“The misconception is that we’re constantly partying while we’re working. People think we might be there to party, just like the attendees are.”
There is time for fun or to meet up with your friends. But most importantly, I’m there because the festival hired me on for brand awareness promotion, and to make sure that is all done and that our reputation is upheld. That’s why we’ve been so incredibly successful because we are passionate about our careers and name. Although maybe people that don’t go to festivals just think I go to parties! [Laughs]
seradopa: Ah, if only people knew about our industry! If only it was that simple!
seradopa: You’ve grown a ton in the past few years. How surreal is it to be involved in so many different aspects of the industry? Have you had a chance to step back and think about your growth too?
Megan Fuhrman: Actually funny you said that!
Out of the blue, one of my co-workers texted me. A festival did hire me to work part-time. I’m excited about it! But with that being said, I was like, “I have insane imposter syndrome right now. Like, this isn’t real.”
She was like, literally, “Just take a step back and write down everything that you’re feeling right now.”
“Take a step back, write down everything you’re feeling, read it, and realize that you deserve it. Write down those wins or how you’re feeling right now. Write down how you got there or what got you to this point. Then you’ll realize you deserve it.”
I hadn’t taken a step back and done that until she randomly texted me to write everything down. And that helped me to be in awe of the growth!
I’ve just really immersed myself in this scene, and I’ve made a commitment to myself to let this happen. I actually have a tattoo that symbolizes this. It’s just a quote that says, “Let your dreams become your reality.”
And ever since I got that, and maybe this is cliché, that’s when I just started getting into gig work. Instantly, kept getting more and more gigs. From being hired by Groove Cruise to, you know, moving up in The Festival Babes. Making my own content and getting recognition from companies, festivals, and events.
“I always have this reminder on my arm and it’s my favorite thing in the entire world. A gentle reminder that I will do whatever it takes to make my dreams so real.”
Megan Fuhrman: Now I want to talk a little bit about my growth and how I got to where I am because that adds to my everything. My motivation and work ethic stems from when I started with The Festival Babes.
Back in 2021, I was working in sales, but I wanted to do something that I was passionate about. I found The Festival Babes on my Instagram. They had reached out and they used to be an Instagram photo reposting company. If you wore a cute outfit to a festival, they’d feature you on their page.
I applied for an internship. They wanted to bring on a marketing intern. And I didn’t get it, they didn’t hire me. But they reached back out a week later, and they said they made the wrong decision. The intern that they went with, they didn’t like, and they wanted to go with me instead. And so ever since I said yes, I’m going to show you why I deserved it in the first place. That was my motivation.
“I was like, this is why you should have hired me first! That’s the Scorpio in me.”
Megan Fuhrman: [Laughs]
I took the internship. It was unpaid and I started moving my way up. I became the Social Media Coordinator for a moment, and then I had this great idea! We should work with artists!
I presented this whole side of things, basically what we do for music festivals but do with artists as well. From promoting their tracks, their shows or events, and doing artist interviews. We could onboard creators to promote an artist’s brand-new track.
Now we’re really successful in the A&R department. So I ended up moving up. I built it out with my boss Kat [Founder + CEO of The Festival Babes], and I ended up becoming the A&R Manager. Then a year later, in January 2023, she hired me part-time to be Vice President. And as of June 2024, I now work for them full-time as the Vice President. I can’t thank my boss, Kat Yung, enough for taking that chance and believing in me, and letting me just run with this. And we’ve been so successful in that!
Again, my life is something out of a dream, but it’s real! I took something that I’m passionate about and I made it into a career and name for myself. I do get imposter syndrome, and I finally have taken that time to take a step back and realize that this is my life! Every day I count my my blessings. I love it so much!
seradopa: From getting multiple opportunities to be behind the scenes, which unveils some of the wonders of the industry! What have you learned from your experiences and how do you take those lessons to what you do for your personal opportunities?
Megan Fuhrman: When I started working behind the scenes, you start to see what’s going on. It takes away from that festival magic for you, because when you’re an attendee, it’s like, oh my god, everything’s great.
Everything’s awesome unless something really bad happens on-site, then it’s not, but for the most part, it’s like, this is why I love going to festivals. I get to do this and see music!
Then behind the scenes, it’s not that, the magic isn’t there, but we put on the magic for the attendees.
Sometimes you start to lose a little bit of that magic. People can come off as very tough and unfriendly. Sometimes, I found that with management. You start to see things for how they are.
Another thing – the industry is still extremely male-dominated. Especially when I was in gig work, everybody I worked with was a male. All my bosses were males. From the stage managers, TMs, DJs, and everyone, I just noticed they were all male. Recently we’ve been good about accepting or bringing women in there. What you guys [The Electric Hawk] have been doing is so great! It is so cool to see all these women crushing it. It’s important to have that equal opportunity on both ends, but I would say that that’s been cool to see more female involvement.
This one is a tough subject, but I’ve definitely seen and had issues with it. Some people take authority to a whole new level. One thing that I’ve learned is not to let it get to you. Just because someone has a walkie-talkie doesn’t put them above everyone else when it comes to giving respect. Some people with walkie-talkies and how they treat attendees can be disrespectful.
“We can bridge that gap between the workers on site and the attendees on site, to have that respect on both ends. People take authority to a whole new level, especially behind the scenes. Everyone deserves respect!”
Megan Fuhrman: Okay, this is one for the attendees! People are so quick to blast a festival when things go wrong. When it rains – worst festival ever.
Listen, rain is out of everyone’s control. If that were me, if there’s lightning and a set has to stop for a minute, they are doing that for safety. It’s not anyone’s fault, it’s the weather. It’s hard when people blame a festival for things like that. “Why did they stop the music?” Well, maybe they don’t want you getting hurt or equipment getting damaged. We have to take those precautions and people have to remember that as well.
If we’re not having a good time, why are we not having a good time? What can we do differently so that our experience is better next time?
Providing feedback to a festival on how they can fix the issue? Many festivals ask for feedback and how they can do better next time. Attendees can do that privately by sending a submission form to get read instead of constantly blasting people on their Instagram and TikTok and making everybody hate each other. That doesn’t need to happen.
Granted, I’ve done it myself, but my reasoning was fair and justified, so I don’t regret it.
seradopa: From unveiling some of the truth behind the scenes, there was a TikTok that caught our attention honestly on the truth about a festival. What is your opinion on being transparent and open about these topics? Especially with a fear of getting “blacklisted” from attending events?
Megan Fuhrman: Yeah, so there’s ways that you can be and then there’s ways that could be handled behind closed doors.
It’s one thing when you’re constantly complaining about things that aren’t a big deal. And I have no issue opening up about extreme violations. I have no issue saying something about it, such as, not paying somebody when you’re promised payment because that’s how we make a living! [Laughs]
That’s what my video was about!
One thing that drove me to say something was that a lot of my friends worked at that event, and none of them got paid – literally none of them.
Granted, I was not working at that event. I was working with a sponsorship company on-site at that event. So I was not affiliated with that festival. Someone that I live with, was not paid and this is how we pay rent. That affects our lives, you know, affects our budget. It affects how we do things.
I’ll never work with that festival again if it ever comes back. I wouldn’t care one bit if I were blacklisted. I do understand people are scared of that. They are scared to speak up and use their voice because there could be a consequence that comes with it. Someone probably hates me out there for saying something, but at the end of the day, if it is an extreme violation, it’s important to speak up about it.
I truly believe that some things aren’t a big deal. If one person didn’t clean a porta-potty once or was rude to us, we don’t need to constantly use our platform to complain about it.
But I also believe that if we all took accountability for our actions or festivals took accountability for their actions, instead of blaming a million other outlying factors, people wouldn’t feel the constant need to speak up about it.
I love it when a festival can take ownership of something!
“Again, with the whole thing, if you speak out, expect that there might be some consequence for your actions. If it can be said behind closed doors, it’s better to say things behind closed doors.“
It’s a mature way to do it, instead of putting people or festivals on blast, unless it’s an extreme circumstance and they don’t respond to any of your emails.
seradopa: Since you pursue two different sides of the industry. What is a singular piece of advice for anyone who wants to be a part of the industry?
Megan Fuhrman: I have two, but they’re really quick. [Laughs]
Number one is to get involved locally in your scene! There’s probably a venue or event company out there. DM the Instagram page and see how you can promote for them. Do something marketing for them. Maybe you can create content for them!
And then the other one: volunteer! There’s this platform called Shift Happens and it’s a volunteer app. It’s where you can work shifts for festivals. Waakan Music Festival just put one out to work at the festival. And I think that that’s really cool.
I had to mention the two things – you asked for one, but I couldn’t help but bring up both. They’re important to me!
seradopa: And what is a singular piece of advice for someone who wants to start content creation in the electronic community?
Megan Fuhrman: Do what matters to you – make content that means something to you. If you love fashion, go a fashion route. I want to see what you’re wearing. Like, if you are passionate, I want to see that.
Me, personally, I love comedy and funny content. I love making fun of myself – I think that’s so fun! But, you know, respectfully and funnily. I also love giving insight and advice. Those videos have always done well because they’re authentic to me. I get asked all the time, “How did I get to where I am?” or “How am I doing this?” Maybe people find me very relatable, so they’re like, “Well if she can do it, how do I do it too? “
So, I make content that is authentic to me. That’s my recommendation to someone who wants to create content!
Stay connected with Megan Fuhrman:
Instagram | TikTok
Stay connected with The Festival Babes:
Instagram | TikTok | Website
Stay in touch with Electric Hawk & all our coverage
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | Twitch | Radio Show
Looking for new music? Keep up with our weekly Spotify Playlist, Fresh Hunts. Updated every Friday with all the latest releases. Whether it’s the newest drops from all your favorite artists, some old-school, or underground… we want you to hear it.