Meet Dustin Kron

We were lucky to catch up with Dustin Kron recently and have shared our conversation below.

Dustin, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

Going through year one and year two of Skull House Rock really showed me a lot of struggles, but also opened my eyes to a lot of new things. I was able to learn how to operate in an industry I didn’t know anything about, and was able to build amazing connections with some of the most genuine people. Those people are the reason the festival can continue, and why I continue to work on growing the festival and building a safe community for people to enjoy music, hangout, or get tattooed.

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

I started Skull House Rock to build a community, and create a fun place for me to book bands that I enjoy, while also giving people an outlet to let loose and enjoy music with me. Currently I am working on year three of Skull House, and year one of a new festival I started called Radar Rock, at Reckless Shepherd Brewing in Colombia, MD. But I am working on more than just music events, I am also working on directing my first feature film, titled ‘Limerence’.

I want to focus on work in the fields I enjoy, being music and movies, of course that’s a struggle, but every year I add a new building block to make it sustainable. My company Relentless Resolve Productions has one goal: Know You’re Stronger.

What that means is to wake up everyday knowing you’re stronger than you were the day before, and I want that message to echo throughout every project I work on, create, or produce. I want my company to foster a community where people can feel safe and accepted. A place where they can enjoy music, or movies, or art, and not have to worry about who is standing beside them. We are all listening to the music, watching the movies, or enjoying the art for our own reasons; who are we to judge one another?

The most exciting part about what I do, is building connections and meeting people who are excited or happy that the events are even happening. That gives me drive to keep going, and I hope more people get excited and share their stories, because the festival is about doing it for the people.

Skull House Rock is also tied to two nonprofits, Kelly’s Dream and Blood Cancer United. I aim to raise money through the festival and help these great causes in their fight to stop blood cancers.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Improvisation is a big one, sometimes things go wrong, or people back out or cancel, so being able to adjust on the fly and come up with a solution is a huge skill, and probably one of, if not the most important when doing anything event related, but also film related.

Resilience. Being able to keep going or keep trying when it seems like there is no success in sight. If I stopped pursuing the festivals or the movie industry as soon as it got hard, then I wouldn’t have made any of the connections I have today. So pushing through and trying again and again is pivotal.

Teamwork. Being able to work with people and being a team player is integral to doing any large scale event. Being a one person army doesn’t always work, you can’t be in five places at once. So find a team you trust and delegate tasks to them, so you can be where you need to be.

If you’re already on your journey, don’t give up, keep trying. But also find people you trust to work with you and help you, you can’t do it on your own. Depending on where you are in your journey, start small, small venues, smaller bands, that will help save money. For filmmaking, the same goes, start small, low budget, short films, or even a low budget minimal location feature film. Start small, don’t rush into the big leagues and spend all your money in one place.

Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?

There have been two amazing people I have met through this journey, and they have offered tons of advice and helped with plenty of things. Alice Halley and Ben Shead have been instrumental in the growth of the festival, and my company / brand.

Without the advice and knowledge from these two, I’d be more than a few steps back from where I am. They know the music industry very well, and have not only helped me, but have allowed me to help them as well. After all it is a team game, and helping each other is the best way for it to work.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @dustin_kron
• Other: IG: @relentlessresolveproductions
  IG:: @skullhouserockfest
  IG: @radarrockfest

Image Credits

Zach Thompson

Hayden Holycross