Chris Biagini, senior in journalism and mass communication, will help run the Maximum Ames Music Festival as an intern for Maximum Ames Records. The 130-band, 20-venue celebration of music happening Thursday, Sept. 26, through Sunday, Sept. 29. Biagini will graduate in December and is interning at Maximum Ames for his required journalism-based internship.

How did you get your internship with Maximum Ames Records?

I feel like a big part of it for me this time was just being persistent. I know sometimes students are worried about contacting somebody too much. Just being persistent and then like loving music and being passionate about it and about what they do just helped out a ton. That’s what they do, they’re hugely creative guys.

What do you do at Maximum Ames?

So far, I’ve had to do all kinds of different stuff. We have the festival starting in a few days, so a lot of it has been geared towards that. But things are going to be changing a little bit post-festival. Stuff that I have done and will continue to do is social media things and when people buy stuff off our site, get it out. If people buy stuff in Ames, we actually hand-deliver it. I co-wrote our newsletter, and I’ve done a couple of blog posts and news releases and stuff. A lot of it has also just been street team kind of stuff, going around with posters and handbills on campus, in the dorms, in Ames itself.

What is your favorite part about working at Maximum Ames?

My favorite part so far is honestly just the people I’ve gotten to be around. I have three different bosses, they’re around to different degrees, but they’ve all been really cool and super nice to me. They’re all in bands; they’re musicians; they’re actually all playing at the festival during the same show. My one boss in particular, Nate [Logsdon], he’s one of the co-founders; he’s an ISU alumni; he just has this awesome energy about him all the time; just whenever he’s in the room everything gets better, he’s our fearless leader.

Why would you recommend that students come check out Maximum Ames Music Festival?

There’s a bunch of reasons. One, it’s just fun. Two, there are over a hundred bands, so unless you just don’t like music, you’ll be able to find something you like. My cop-out in the past as a college student has always been I’m a typical poor college kid, I don’t have the money, but 10 of our shows are free and then a whole bunch of others are $2 to $5. You can afford to go; you’ll enjoy being there, and you’ll be able to see a mix of bigger bands and then a whole ton of up-and-coming bands from Iowa.

Would you recommend interning with Maximum Ames to your fellow students?

In terms of internship stuff, I had a ton of problems getting a [Jl MC] 499 internship. Things would always just fall apart or I wouldn’t come up with anything. But this summer, I got offered three, this was one of them, and I turned the other two down for this one. If people are looking for an internship that have some experience and they enjoy music, definitely check these guys out. They won’t turn people away. People should keep them in mind, email them, and it’ll probably pan out.