In this episode John Kozicki (Michigan Rock School and RockSchoolProprietor.com) and Mandy York (Music Time of Milford) Kelly Bennett, co-owner of Valencia School of Music, about taking a group of teenagers from her music school on tour. They discuss all the challenges and successes involved in organizing this huge project. Kelly shares insights on how to create a supportive community for young musicians and the importance of performance opportunities in music education.
Kelly walks through organizing a student band tour from New Jersey to Nashville—covering timeline, budgeting, accommodations, chaperones, rehearsals, workshops, and live performances. She explains lessons learned and how Kelly is refining plans to make future experiences sustainable and meaningful.
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Episode Transcript:
John Kozicki (00:01.441)
Welcome to Rock School Proprietor Podcast. My name is John Kozicki.
Mandy York (00:06.161)
and I’m Mandi York.
John Kozicki (00:07.612)
And Mandy, we are going to be joined by a guest today. Our guest is co-owner of Valencia School of Music, which is in a suburb of Newark, New Jersey. She is a vocalist and a voice instructor at the school as well. And she coordinates the performance program and all the bands at her studio. Kelly Bennett, how are you today?
Kelly Bennett (00:34.297)
I’m good, how you doing?
John Kozicki (00:36.122)
Doing well. So Kelly, we’re gonna talk about this big project that, well, it sounds like you’ve been doing it for a few years, but you just wrapped it for the summer. You took some of your bands on tour this summer. Yeah.
Kelly Bennett (00:54.54)
I did. I did. Yeah, my husband, I did. I I had help.
Mandy York (00:56.488)
Super cool.
John Kozicki (01:00.028)
And the, you know, the thought of on top of running your studio and the everyday activities that are involved with that, then deciding, you know what, I’m going to coordinate a tour, not and not just not just a tour, but a tour with teenagers, presumably, maybe some some preteens.
Pretty big, pretty big undertaking.
Kelly Bennett (01:32.384)
You know, when you put it like that, it does sound good.
John Kozicki (01:35.056)
Right? We don’t, right. We don’t think about these things in the front end. We don’t think about the consequences of like, what exactly am I doing? We’re just like, man, we look at that end result and think that would be amazing. But props to you because from from what I saw, the images I saw, the videos you shared, it looks like it was an amazing experience. And I want to hear all about it. So we’re going to talk about that today. Now, you have a pretty robust brand band program at
Kelly Bennett (01:39.731)
No.
Kelly Bennett (01:44.685)
Yeah.
Kelly Bennett (01:56.757)
Yeah. Yeah.
John Kozicki (02:04.443)
Valencia and you were telling me like rough student counts overall around 400 students as well as about a dozen a dozen bands and what you call it two elite bands and it was those elite bands primarily that you plan to take on tour correct? Okay so tell me about I guess the
Kelly Bennett (02:26.819)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (02:32.367)
First, like when did you come up with this idea and why?
Kelly Bennett (02:37.066)
Well, the funny thing was it was in 2019. So I was, I, it’s almost like I remember it like yesterday. I was sitting down and I was like, how did the School of Rock All-Stars bring their kids onto it? Like, what do they do? And I realized that they bring them to all different School of Rocks. And I was like, there’s so many schools that are privately owned in this country and like internationally, probably, not probably, definitely.
John Kozicki (02:40.918)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (02:55.108)
Yes.
Kelly Bennett (03:03.52)
but that we could connect with. And not only is having a community and a network of music schools really empowering for what we do, because sometimes you feel like an absolute island, but I looked around, was like, you know, we had been going to the NAMM Festival and my husband and I looked at each other and we were like, what if we visited Music Authority? then she was, know, Melissa Loggins runs the Music Authority down in Georgia.
John Kozicki (03:03.664)
Right?
John Kozicki (03:14.831)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Bennett (03:32.99)
and she was really on board with it. We were really excited. We were planning the whole thing out and then boom, everything gets shut down. A few years later, yeah, we picked something else up too.
John Kozicki (03:40.393)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mandy York (03:40.911)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (03:45.895)
So yeah, coincidentally, listeners to the show may remember, I think it was episode 26, we had Greg Hipskin on from QC Rock Academy. And literally, probably the same time you were planning this in 2019, Greg and I had been strategizing on doing the same thing, taking bands from our schools on tour. Okay, so obviously in 2020, you didn’t do it. So yeah.
Kelly Bennett (04:13.119)
Nope. We did not.
John Kozicki (04:15.35)
When did when did you actually when was the first year that you made this happen?
Kelly Bennett (04:20.776)
So we did a version of it back in 2022 where we brought one of our bands, one of our elite bands to LA. We had originally tried to team up with a school, but it kind of didn’t, it just didn’t pan out. So we just kind of set up a show at the Whiskey a Go Go. And then we went over to Anaheim and brought them to the NAMM Festival and we had a lot of fun. We did try to get them into the NAMM Festival as performers, but that’s really hard to do. But…
John Kozicki (04:47.13)
Yeah, yeah.
Kelly Bennett (04:48.64)
but we ended bringing them over. had a great time. But it didn’t have that kind of structure that this one had. This was a really structured tour. That was kind of almost like a vacation with our students. And that ended up being really expensive on our end because we didn’t build any expenses into the actual students and what they were doing. But my husband and I, it was really fun, but it was definitely something that we were like, if we’re gonna do this again, we have to do it really differently and make it something that’s sustainable for both the business.
John Kozicki (05:00.155)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Bennett (05:18.571)
I’m the students.
John Kozicki (05:20.378)
Yeah, and that was, you know, I think that’s a big question is when you start budgeting for a tour, I mean, and I know from my like rough and tumble touring days, you certainly don’t want the kids sleeping in a van, right? Or on some random person’s couch or couch cushions on the floor, like I remember doing.
Kelly Bennett (05:41.724)
No.
Mandy York (05:43.619)
Not okay.
John Kozicki (05:49.756)
You want a budget for comfortable accommodations. You want to be safe. I’m sure you had to look into additional insurance. So what are we talking about as far as like, what is a budget for touring some kids like this, roughly?
Kelly Bennett (06:09.803)
So we ended up, so we kind of treated it like a camp. The way that we would say, what is this camp? What do we have to kind of set up? Now, what we had originally thought that we were going to do, we thought that we were gonna have a lot more student, a lot of like the entire group, like everyone was like, yeah, we wanna go, we’re so excited about this. And then when it, know, push came to shove in January and we’re like, okay, we’re gonna charge you who’s in, like seven of them were in out of like, you know, almost 20. Now we had additional bands that we were planning on bringing. we were.
John Kozicki (06:32.762)
Okay.
Kelly Bennett (06:39.658)
So we’re like, I don’t know if we can get that big charter bus and we’re gonna have to figure this out then. So we ended up looking into flying them. But what we had originally said was, okay, we wanna make this work on $1,500 a student. And then that’s what we charged them, because that was what we quoted them. And I was like, my goodness, we have to make some changes, we have to make some adjustments because there is not.
John Kozicki (06:45.743)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (06:54.458)
Okay.
Kelly Bennett (07:06.854)
as much money as I had thought to bring every transport, room them. Now we had worked with, you know, someone from music authority to help us book a hotel in Georgia. You know, so there was definitely some help on the other school’s end. And then we allotted for things like, you know, an allowance for the fact that we had to bring a teacher down and we had to pay for their accommodations. And we basically
John Kozicki (07:33.584)
Yeah.
Kelly Bennett (07:34.282)
We did end up building our accommodations and our travel into the budget of everything. And then the performance, so sometimes you have to pay to put together a performance and you have to book a room. And we built that in and we built in one time that we’re gonna bring everyone out for like a big group dinner. But we were like, okay, so was accommodations, travel, and your shows are on us. And we’re gonna go out to dinner one day. Everything else, guys, is on you.
John Kozicki (07:40.911)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Bennett (08:02.474)
So they brought down spending money and things like that. You want to go buy things, you want to go, you when we grab lunch and things, you guys take care of that, we’ll take care of the rest. And, you know, as far as like their own spending money, they brought down with us. Now that with the caveat of, you know, I’m in an area where the schools bring the kids to Japan, to Austria, you know, their school trips are all over the world. these aren’t, you know, trips like this aren’t inaccessible or…
John Kozicki (08:21.807)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Bennett (08:30.538)
cost prohibitive for many of our students. That’s something that I just, I kind of looked at what the schools are doing, the public schools are doing and say, okay, this is like way scaled back from what the public schools do. So it was that in the regular world that they live in, it’s very accessible. So yeah, it was something that I had to find.
John Kozicki (08:40.74)
That’s smart.
John Kozicki (08:50.543)
That’s an im-
Mandy York (08:50.724)
Did you have any parents come with you or was it just you and your staff?
Kelly Bennett (08:56.841)
Just one. A lot of parents met us in Nashville because they didn’t want to go to Georgia. we had told this, we love him so much, his son just graduated. We had told him about three times, like, okay, but your accommodations are not paid for. We have not booked you a flight. We have not booked you a room. Make sure if you are coming that you are going to book that stuff. He shows up to the airport. He’s like, what do you mean you had a flight?
John Kozicki (09:17.563)
no.
Kelly Bennett (09:20.117)
wow. So we did some, you know, we helped him find, he found something, he got down there a little after us. We’re just happy that he fit in the cars that we rented. Sometimes things just happen and like an extra person when you are accounting for a very specific number is like, okay. And then there was a little debacle at the hotel, but you know, you just kind of like try to deal with it and try. Nothing will ever go perfectly. Nothing. No.
John Kozicki (09:30.838)
my gosh.
Mandy York (09:31.079)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (09:47.9)
just like a real tour. Yeah, Mandy, I love that question about the parents coming because that, again, that was one of my thoughts. It’s like, we have chaperones, right? Do we have parents who come as chaperones because if I’m taking seven to 10 kids out on tour,
Mandy York (09:48.711)
Yeah.
Kelly Bennett (09:50.209)
just like a real tour to actually…
John Kozicki (10:14.959)
we’ve got to be responsible for these kids and who’s going to be keeping that watchful eye on them in these cities wherever you’re going throughout that process. So did you consider that idea of the chaperones or in your initial planning was it all just, nope, we’re gonna, it’s gonna be just us taking care of the kids and anyone who wants to meet us down there can.
Kelly Bennett (10:39.141)
Well, we’re always open to parents coming. We say, look, you guys can come. You just book your own accommodations. And it was really helpful in Nashville because
we, a couple of our friends came down in order to book the show, we had to put another band on the bill that was an adult band. That was my Weezer tribute and 90s cover band. But yeah, the show bookings a whole other thing too. But when they were there, you we said, Hey, would you mind being kind of the contact point parent while we go and kind of hang out a little bit and have a night to ourselves on this. And they were like, absolutely. So we did it. That was really nice.
John Kozicki (10:59.269)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Bennett (11:17.914)
see the Georgia leg, I mean, we did bring a teacher with us so that if we needed to split off into three groups or multiple groups, we could do that. But we also, everyone in our group was 15 or older. So there was a little bit more of, like, we didn’t need to keep them on such a tight leash. I don’t know that I would bring anyone on tour younger than 15. Just because they’re going to want to go and explore and they’re going to want to, you know, and keeping
John Kozicki (11:41.338)
Yeah.
Kelly Bennett (11:46.408)
tabs on that many, keeping them, you you can say to a 15 and 16 year old, send me your location, you can go explore for 30 minutes, and then we’re meeting back here in 30 minutes, you know, and that’s not that big of a deal. But, you know, having a 10 year old, you know, in crowds in Nashville or Manhattan or, you know, anywhere, to be honest, like, it’s very easy to lose track of them. So I don’t think that I would want to bring somebody that wasn’t used to being responsible for their own location and
John Kozicki (11:55.3)
Yes.
Kelly Bennett (12:15.599)
And the other thing is too, you’re bringing the small of a group, you know those kids. Like I know those kids, I know their families. We’re not bringing kids that have just started at the school. We’re bringing people that we’ve known for years and have known us for years. And I think that’s a, I haven’t thought of it, but this is probably a big piece of why this works because they are longstanding families, they’re longstanding students. We know them really intimately and the families are really, we’re like,
John Kozicki (12:20.314)
Yes.
John Kozicki (12:41.232)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Bennett (12:44.888)
really even professionally and personally were really close to the families.
John Kozicki (12:49.451)
So then you’ve got seven kids on this most recent tour. You’ve got seven kids out on tour with you. And you’re there. You said you paid an instructor to be there. How many adults to the kids are out on this tour?
Kelly Bennett (12:53.508)
Right.
Kelly Bennett (13:05.499)
Well, with the school, was seven kids and three adults that were working. So that was like two to three kids to an adult. Yeah.
John Kozicki (13:15.513)
Yeah, so you can play a decent zone defense with 15 year olds and the three adults, no problem.
Kelly Bennett (13:20.911)
Yeah. Yeah. And some of were 18 too. Some of them were high school graduates, which was a relief. Yeah. Yeah.
John Kozicki (13:28.846)
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, that’s fantastic. Because then can almost have the older kids kind of be the responsible ones for maybe some of the younger kids. Okay, so why don’t you now you mentioned also, you set this up as a kind of like a camp and you mentioned January was when you decided or you told everyone, okay, we’re going to charge, we’re going to charge you the $1,500 per kid.
Mandy York (13:31.174)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Bennett (13:39.728)
Yeah, that’s.
Kelly Bennett (13:48.711)
Right.
John Kozicki (14:00.623)
for this tour, January, much earlier than July when you actually do the tour. So when does your planning for this start and sort of starting to plant those seeds with the students and their parents to get this tour happening?
Kelly Bennett (14:25.952)
I mean, we made the calls to Melissa to set it up with Music Authority in August of last year.
John Kozicki (14:33.219)
Okay, so you’re starting planning for the tour. Yeah, a year in advance. Okay.
Kelly Bennett (14:35.27)
Like a year.
Kelly Bennett (14:39.184)
Which is, mean, it’s in line of how I time manage my school anyway, because I’m pretty much done with most of my shows. I got like three more shows to book from now until June. Everything’s booked, everything’s on the books, everything’s done for the school year for the most part. I’m just waiting for one of my venues who likes to drink. And you know, the summer schedule is out. It’s already filled out for next July and August.
John Kozicki (14:43.866)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (14:58.842)
Yeah.
Kelly Bennett (15:08.333)
If I’m not done with the schedule and the, you know, where everything is sitting for next year, then I, you know, trying to do something. And as you know, in November, December, January, February is like, that’s time of year to be putting anything together in its initial phases for that school year and summer.
John Kozicki (15:21.145)
Yes. Yeah.
John Kozicki (15:28.667)
And have the students and parents at this point, because you said you did this the first time in 2022. So have you done it every year since then?
Kelly Bennett (15:35.664)
Yes.
Kelly Bennett (15:41.441)
We did in 2022 and then this year it was, been three years, but the 2022 one was so cost prohibited and so expensive that I think I am not the money person. I am the spending person. I am the marketing person and the let’s do this new program person. My husband is the, thank God, because I failed the count like three times in college. I made three attempts at it. He, but he’s kind of looking at the books and he’s like, I don’t, can’t do that again. Like we can’t ever do.
John Kozicki (15:54.575)
Gotcha.
Mandy York (15:56.294)
you
John Kozicki (15:58.565)
Yeah.
Kelly Bennett (16:10.105)
we did in 2022 again, it’s way too expensive. It’s not realistic, it’s not sustainable. So, you know, I came up with this kind of concept of, if it was a camp, how would we do this? Like, because I used to do a musical theater camp that was unbelievably cost prohibitive, but we always managed to hit a zero line. So we’re like, well, if we just look at it like that, there’s just expenses and we just have to, you this time we’re gonna have to ballpark it in a way that we think it’s gonna work out. But then…
John Kozicki (16:38.148)
Hehe.
Kelly Bennett (16:39.162)
But then, you know, we kind of got an idea. It was a lot different than we thought. And then we ended up, you know, kind of just tweaking everything. But he, the reason that we took three years was because, you know, we really had to nail down what we wanted to do and how we wanted to execute it very differently from the time before. And then now what we’re talking about doing a biennial tour, which…
we have, so next year what we think is that they’re gonna probably come to us. So we’re gonna have the authority come to us. We’re hoping set up a cool like Stone Pony or New York City gig and then the following year. So I’m already thinking about like, okay, where do we wanna go next year or in two years?
John Kozicki (17:10.49)
Okay.
John Kozicki (17:17.455)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (17:21.71)
Hey, well, count me in for maybe a spot there.
Kelly Bennett (17:26.34)
I’ve dropped some Detroit area. You’re in the Detroit area, right? Yeah, I’ve dropped some.
John Kozicki (17:34.043)
Yeah, yeah, uh-huh. Yeah, we’re like a lot of times we’re a pass through city, right? So like if someone’s playing Cleveland and then Chicago or vice versa, right? We’re sort of like sometimes a pass through city. Okay, so then 2022 you did it for the first time comparing that to, cause you said that was cost prohibitive. You took some time to figure out the better plan, better budget, did it again this past year in 2025.
Kelly Bennett (17:44.11)
Got it.
Kelly Bennett (17:47.781)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (18:03.724)
you’re talking about it as if it was successful in that are you thinking like, okay, we made strides to the point that we can continue to modify this and make this a regular thing.
Kelly Bennett (18:18.624)
Yeah, absolutely. we’re just looking, you anything that we do, you’re never gonna get it right on the first go. I mean, we definitely got on the first go in 2022, but this year we got a lot, a lot closer. We got like 80 % closer to the goal post. And we’re like, okay, if we start tweaking and we start thinking more realistically and basing our expenses on the last time and basing, you know,
John Kozicki (18:19.62)
Okay.
John Kozicki (18:25.818)
Sure.
Kelly Bennett (18:41.125)
how we executed, I think that we can get to a point where, and I’m not, this is never gonna be a program or something that we wanna turn a profit on. This is primarily for the kids’ experience and there is a, what’s the word? We want, it’s a prestige thing where we do this. And our local School of Rock also does it.
John Kozicki (19:03.918)
Yes.
Mandy York (19:05.049)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (19:08.525)
Uh-huh.
Kelly Bennett (19:09.272)
There’s a competition element for me. My students know that. I don’t know that the whole of the school knows that, but my students know that. There is a competitive edge to it that I think is important when you’re in an area where you have kids coming back. My music school went to Nashville this year. yeah, my music school went to Miami this year. And now we’re all playing on the same field. And there’s seven schools in a two mile radius of me.
John Kozicki (19:13.134)
Yes.
Mandy York (19:14.01)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (19:35.193)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (19:39.043)
Right, so lot of competition. No, yeah, you said your goal might not be to turn a profit on this project. And there is that prestige that comes along with it. When you’re able to say like, yes, we take these kids out on tour. But at the same time, you can’t take a huge loss, which is is yeah, which is evident from okay, your first attempt. Like you said, your husband was like, no way we can’t do it again.
Kelly Bennett (19:57.738)
Right.
Kelly Bennett (20:05.975)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (20:07.492)
But yeah, you’ve got to get close, you know? Yeah. Okay, so this is all fantastic information on like the logistics and the budget. And now maybe what I would like to do is like, take me through, what did the, you said it was four days, I think you told me, you did two venues. What is the tour like?
Kelly Bennett (20:32.747)
Yep. Yeah.
John Kozicki (20:37.134)
you know, kind of go over those four days.
Kelly Bennett (20:41.326)
Oh man, was like nothing else I’ve ever done. And it was an interesting group of kids, because we had kids from each of our bands. The majority of the kids were from one band, and then kids from the other bands wanted to come. And I was like, well, your band’s not coming. Do you still want to come? They’re like, yes. And I was like, all right, let’s do this. So I rearranged. I took songs from each band. And we had a rehearsal. We had special rehearsals for the tour.
John Kozicki (20:57.081)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Bennett (21:04.45)
Which again, that was kind of part, that’s something I have to work into the budget next time, the fact that someone’s gonna have to run those rehearsals. That wasn’t something I thought of, but I ran them and I was like, it’s cool, I’m giving my time for this tour. And I already knew I was giving my time. But if ever we have a teacher who’s doing it, I’m never gonna ask them to give them time for something that just brings us cool prestige. But we did a one hour set list so that we could play up to an hour, but we can also tweak it and then.
We got to, we flew out day one at like 5.30 in the morning, landed in Atlanta, rented the cars, drove to the town that Music Authority is in, Georgia. And we checked in and then we met up with the school. They got right to the school and we did critiques. So their bands played and we critiqued them and then our bands played and she critiqued them, which is a really cool experience.
John Kozicki (21:40.856)
Okay.
John Kozicki (22:01.646)
Very cool.
Kelly Bennett (22:04.778)
No, I got it. I have to give it to Melissa Loggins. She is just an, she planned out exactly what we were gonna do and it was unbelievable. Like our kids were, they were like tired after this. So they did the, but they played for each other. We gave them a little bit of time to do some ice breakers and meet each other. And then we all went out for dinner. Headed back to the hotel and we were like, you guys do some practicing, get some shut eye, cause we’re gonna have a whole.
John Kozicki (22:18.874)
huh.
John Kozicki (22:27.865)
Okay.
Kelly Bennett (22:34.368)
you know, big day tomorrow, because that’s your performance day. So, you know, and my husband, myself and my art teacher, Ike, we sat down and we had a little post meeting about, you know, now that it’s fresh in our mind, how do we want to think about our band program and how it’s going to develop with this in mind as that kind of like upper echelon of this is where they’re going. And we had some really good conversation and really good note taking. I’m a sucker for meetings when things are current.
and kicking around those ideas and we’re excited. The following day we headed out to like a local place where they had a stage and like this little downtown area which was super beautiful. It was just really lovely. There was like restaurants and stores and things. So that was one of the places where the kids kind of walked around but they met up and they hung out with the other kids from the other school and they got to know them a little bit.
So we went out to dinner, went out to lunch with Melissa and then we wrapped that all up and we did some kind of workshop things. There was a, I was supposed to do a vocal workshop, but we ran out of time. And then one of her teachers gave a music business workshop. So just offering those workshop options and things. But I did work with a couple of her kids vocally, gave them just some ideas and some pointers. And then we head back, we grabbed our gear, we loaded in for the show.
John Kozicki (23:47.62)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Bennett (24:00.812)
played a show to a packed house at one of their local venues, which was super amazing. It was just an unbelievable experience. And we got a lot of great video. And the nice thing was that during the critiques, a lot of the kids got feedback. It was the same feedback that I give them, but they hear it from a different person. And then they, I’m gonna do that. And I was like,
John Kozicki (24:16.953)
So important. Yes. Yeah, yeah, to a certain extent, it’s like when when we as like the the instructors and the band coaches, they get so comfortable with us when we give them that feedback. It’s almost like, you know, your your parent telling you like, you should do this. And the kids like whatever. Right, but hear it from a peer and it makes a world of difference. Yeah. OK, so sorry.
Mandy York (24:21.825)
Yeah.
Kelly Bennett (24:38.209)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s exactly exactly. Yeah, no, Yep. We hopped in the cars. We drove to Nashville and that was kind of a yeah, that was a day that we went exploring in downtown. We split into two groups. One of the teachers went with them and then we split off with some of other kids.
John Kozicki (24:45.751)
That’s day two, they played the show. Day three, are we up to day three?
Kelly Bennett (25:05.146)
and they wanted to kind of go shopping, like the girls wanted to go shopping so we went with them and then we wanted to check out live music and then we all reconvened about an hour later.
John Kozicki (25:12.759)
Now, did anyone from Music Authority come with your group to Nashville, or was that just your group? Okay. Okay.
Kelly Bennett (25:18.816)
No, that was just our group. they actually, it was they were like texting and messaging with them the entire time. Yeah, though, they were they were like sending back and forth like pictures and everything. And that was really they actually still stay in touch with some of them. So which is unbelievable. Yeah. Gosh, the Oh, so what we did, I have a I went every time we go to Nashville, we go to Monell’s and that was the big dinner out I wanted to bring everybody to and
John Kozicki (25:26.357)
Amazing. Amazing.
John Kozicki (25:34.819)
That’s great.
Kelly Bennett (25:46.693)
It was one of our graduating seniors birthdays as well. So we celebrated his birthday. We all had a big round table dinner. I mean, that’s particularly cool because it’s like family style. You can’t order anything. They just bring you what’s on the menu. And then you just pass it around and it’s like Thanksgiving dinner, but at a restaurant and it’s all Southern food and unbelievable. shout out to one else.
John Kozicki (26:00.558)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Bennett (26:12.149)
But then we did that and that was the night that one of the parents was there. I was like, hey, could you be a touchstone? Some of our friends came down to meet with us so they could play with us. Is it okay if we head out and kind of do the grownups thing on the town? And they were like, yeah. So, you know, they were at the hotel, the kids were at the hotel, hanging out in the pool until they kicked them out. we were, yeah, we were out in the town. We got back a little bit later. And then the last day, last full day,
John Kozicki (26:29.475)
Hahaha.
Kelly Bennett (26:39.84)
We kind of just took it easy, got ready for the show. We were like, guys, this has been a big weekend. Let’s chill out. Let’s just take it easy today. We’ll walk around a little bit, but let’s make sure that we’re rested for the show. If you want to get any practice in, we loaded into the venue in the late afternoon. It was the whiskey room in Franklin, Tennessee, because anything downtown Nashville is impossible to get into.
John Kozicki (27:04.93)
Okay.
Kelly Bennett (27:08.896)
There was actually, I’m gonna just throw in, there was one thing, because we we’re walking around a bit and we went to the Bon Jovi bar and it was all ages during the day. So we were able to bring the kids in and we asked one of the guys, he’s walking around with a tip bucket as they do in Nashville. And we were like, hey, what would we have to pay you to get one of our students to play Free Bird on guitar? And he was like, $100 for Free Bird and $100 for your student. So he’s like, let me see what I can drum up. We ended up having our…
John Kozicki (27:09.089)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (27:23.737)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (27:34.093)
Hahaha.
Kelly Bennett (27:37.567)
one of the best guitarists who ever came through our school and our student bassist who has never picked up a five string bass and had to figure it out on the fly. He did a great job of it. They played Freebird with this cover band in Nashville on the tiered stage at Bon Jovi’s bar. it was, they got off and they’re like, I’ve never done anything that cool in my life and I don’t think I ever will again. Yeah.
John Kozicki (27:46.488)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (28:01.645)
So cool.
Mandy York (28:03.339)
Mm-hmm
Kelly Bennett (28:06.589)
Very cool. It was amazing. Yeah.
John Kozicki (28:07.935)
Amazing, amazing. Okay, so that’s day four, right? And then and then you fly back.
Kelly Bennett (28:12.414)
Yeah, then, yeah, we hung out and then next morning we wake up, we check out the, the son was not yet out. And we kind of brought, we had a couple of kids decided to stay with their parents. So we didn’t bring them, like they, dropped one off at her hotel and then with her mom. And then we were like, hey, why don’t you go back with your mom tonight after the show? She no, I want to stay with my friends. And I’m like, of course. So the funny thing was these kids were, they knew each other, they were friendly, but the,
John Kozicki (28:20.855)
Right.
John Kozicki (28:36.483)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Kelly Bennett (28:42.269)
bond over those four days. Like I can’t tell you what transpired between them because I wasn’t part of that part, that piece of it. But they are like conjoined humans now. Like they were, one of them went to Greece right after ours and they were just, were up at, like he was up at three o’clock in the morning talking to them here in Greece because he missed them so much. And it was just the bond that they created is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. That was really cool. Yeah.
John Kozicki (28:53.387)
huh.
John Kozicki (29:11.053)
That’s amazing, Kelly. So in hearing you recount those four days, I was sort of taking a couple notes here. I mean, every day, every day you’re giving those kids an opportunity to hang out and bond, which is huge. Every single day, right? Not just with the kids from your school, but now the kids from other areas. I think…
Kelly Bennett (29:11.879)
Yeah, that’s it.
Kelly Bennett (29:30.314)
Yeah. Yeah.
Kelly Bennett (29:36.658)
Yeah. Yeah.
John Kozicki (29:39.853)
Let’s see, with the exception of one day, the kids were also performing or playing, right? So that’s amazing. Plus you’re giving them this insanely cool experience. So, I mean, if I were to give you a grade A plus on everything, Because you’re ticking these boxes that, I mean, Mandy and I talk about this so much, about the importance of
showing parents, showing students, showing everyone that music is more and music lessons is way more than just learning, right? So every single one of them, you’re doing it. You’re giving them an amazing experience. You’re giving them that sense of community. They’re performing, not just practicing. So I think it’s amazing. Kelly, you did a wonderful job and I can’t wait to see you keep going. I mean.
Kelly Bennett (30:18.422)
Yeah.
You know, it’s so funny, all you do is you think about on your, and you probably will relate to this, you are like, okay, here’s the things I need to fix for next time, is the immediate thing that you think about. And that’s, that’s how you drive a better product and a better experience and everything. But it’s nice to hear that too.
Mandy York (30:37.144)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (30:46.168)
Sure.
John Kozicki (30:54.528)
Yeah. Yeah.
Mandy York (30:55.299)
Yeah, you’re going to learn every time you take the trip and you’re just refining this experience. And like you said, it’s going to be annual or biannual. And the prestige thing is really great, but it’s also something for those students to look forward to. Your kids, like the younger kids that are coming up, like, in two years, I’m going to get to go or like something for them to strive for. You know, the
Kelly Bennett (31:01.629)
Yeah.
Kelly Bennett (31:09.119)
Yeah. yeah. Yeah, no, they definitely.
Mandy York (31:19.404)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (31:19.754)
Have you gotten any feedback from, mean, I know now you’re planning this to be an annual thing. Have you gotten any, I’m assuming it’s amazing feedback from the kids who went, but are you starting to hear anything from other families in your studio? Is this starting to become a thing where kids are looking at it like, I want to do that. Or parents are thinking like, hey, so how do I get my kid to be able to go on tour? Or has that not happened yet?
Kelly Bennett (31:31.207)
Yeah.
Kelly Bennett (31:45.768)
Yeah, we’ve definitely gotten a couple of parents who have said, how does Mike get into one of those bands? And a lot of times I’m just saying, well, they gotta come through a band program and you have to get an invitation to audition. So which means you have to play and we’ve got to see you play. but I mean, not too much yet, but I think a couple of
John Kozicki (31:54.04)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Bennett (32:10.759)
Parents who are in the band programs right now have kind of like, is this a thing that could happen? So.
John Kozicki (32:18.348)
Yeah, it’ll it’ll happen. I mean it again as we’re kind of winding things down here, Kelly, I mean I’m confident that it’ll happen because it sounds like it was an amazing experience and you’re already thinking like, well, how do I make it better next time? So props to you, Kelly. If if any listeners want to get in touch with you, should they visit the website and email you or how? How can they get in touch with you?
Kelly Bennett (32:29.209)
Okay. Yeah.
Yeah. No. They can email me at Kelly, K-E-L-L-Y at Valencia Music NJ. And Valencia is spelled like the city in Spain or the orange, the way you would spell Valencia. And I guess I do want to say that this isn’t…
where the dream that I have of this stops. What I want is for you to go see Melissa someday and for me to go find a school and for all of us to be doing these tours across the country all the time. And I actually, I’ve always wanted to do this thing where I create like essentially a NAMM for music schools because NAMM isn’t really focused on the private lesson business. They’re really in the public sector and the merchant sector and the retail.
John Kozicki (33:10.561)
Yes.
John Kozicki (33:29.537)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Bennett (33:31.81)
And I’ve always felt like I want to be in the top 100, but I don’t want to do retail. But that’s something that I think, I think just seeing the, I’m, know, I’m in BAM Squad. Seeing the interactions and how much we rely on a community is just so, it’s so important to us, maintaining our sanity and keeping a balance in what we’re doing as music school owners.
John Kozicki (33:35.84)
Right.
John Kozicki (33:54.936)
Mm-hmm.
Kelly Bennett (34:00.835)
And I would love to see that be like even something that we’re all a part of doing a national conference where our students can be the performers. so that’s all, that’s all part of, this is just phase one of, you know, world domination, apparently. but that’s, that’s what I really want. I want every, every school to feel like they can be a part of this.
John Kozicki (34:13.592)
I love it. I love it. Yeah. Yeah.
Mandy York (34:18.178)
Great.
John Kozicki (34:24.182)
I love that Kelly. Well, and Kelly Bennett, thank you for coming on Rock School Proprietor podcast. You’re doing amazing things. Keep it up.
Mandy York (34:30.626)
Yeah.
Kelly Bennett (34:33.21)
And Mandy, thank you for having me. This was great. Thank you.
Mandy York (34:33.59)
Yeah. Thanks for coming on.
John Kozicki (34:35.96)
All right, okay, we’ll see you guys next time.
