It’s no wonder that Sabin has cultivated an esteemed fan club of music industry professionals, including the heads of other trade groups.
“Running a label made me get very interested in the business of the music industry,” Sabin says of the road that led her to her Music Business Association role. “I was also on the board of A2IM [the American Association of Independent Music] for 12 years, on the board of the RIAA for a couple years, on the Recording Academy Board of Governors in the Pacific Northwest for six years and I also started a podcast about the music industry in 2014, so I had a lot of interest in the business itself.
Today, the Music Business Association has several initiatives to more broadly serve the music industry. For example, the Music Biz conference has added programming that focuses on the touring and ticketing industry “because that part of our business has always weirdly been a little bit separate,” Sabin says. “I certainly found out when I was running a record label that that whole live side was sort of its own animal. The booking agents are over there, the promoters, the big talent agencies.
That commitment to inclusion was illustrated recently when the Nashville-based Music Business Association issued a statement decrying anti-LGBTQ+ bills passed by the Tennessee Legislature.