Music Expo becomes MONO

We have a new name. Here’s the story.

I’ve always associated San Francisco with culture and music. When I moved to the city, I was saddened by the closing of so many iconic music venues and institutions. Music creators were leaving, pushed out by rising costs, forced to abandon the city that had shaped them.

As a bedroom producer and music fan, I felt compelled to contribute to the scene in a meaningful way.

So Music Expo was born on a napkin. A simple vision: the ideal event for gear heads and bedroom producers like myself. A music event made for musicians, by musicians, for musicians, in an actual music venue. Because, throughout my career, I’d noticed something missing: too many music conferences talked about music, but the people actually making it were absent. 

Our first event was on November 8, 2014 at the Chapel on Valencia Street, the same neighborhood where I live now. Dave Smith, founder of Sequential, opened the event. Roger Linn,  inventor of the Linn Drum and the MPC, closed it.

What happened next surprised even me. We grew to four cities: Boston, Miami, Nashville, and San Francisco. We built momentum with the ambition to go internationally to Mexico City. Then came 2020. We paused. We recalibrated. And when we returned to celebrate our 10-year anniversary, we came back stronger. 
Over the last eleven years, we’ve hosted more than 6,000 attendees. We've brought together 300 presenters and partnered with 100 music brands from around the world. We programmed 550 hours of workshops, masterclasses, one-on-one sessions, and panel discussions. Each one is built around a simple belief: Direct access to talent and expertise makes the entire community stronger. 

Early on, we committed to something many in our industry hadn’t: we set a goal of booking 30% women and members of underrepresented communities as presenters. By 2025, we’d nearly double that to 50%. But more importantly, we stopped making them speak about being women in music and started inviting people to do what they do best: run masterclasses, share their expertise, and lead the conversation from the front. 

But here’s what I’ve learned: The landscape shifts. Creator needs evolve. The industry transforms, and so do we. 

With the advancement of AI and generative music, we are at a turning point we’ve never experienced before. But the place of the human is central to creating art. Technology is a tool, and creators should harness the power of these new tools, not the other way around.

Twelve years in, we’re changing our name. This isn’t about leaving Music Expo behind. It’s about growing into something we've always been: A gathering of the creators, tastemakers, and rebels who believe music is made better when we are in the room together. 

That name is MONO.

Mono comes from the Greek monos — alone. Single. One. For us, MONO is about the human at the center of it all. The human for whom music is not one of their interests — it is their singular focus. The individual signal, unique and irreplaceable.

In music, mono is a single channel of audio. That mono button on nearly every piece of gear, every DAW, every tool a creator touches - it’s been there from the beginning. Before stereo, before spatial audio, there was mono. Pure, undivided, direct. Nothing between the music and the ear. The greatest recordings ever made were recorded in mono. Elvis. The Beatles. Ray Charles. Billie Holiday. Mono wasn't a limitation. It was a concentration of power.

And what happens when creators step out of their rooms and into ours? Singular signals come together - and they don’t divide. They unite. For a few days each year, the lone producer or engineer, the artist, the tastemaker - all gathered around  the one thing they share. Different disciplines, different backgrounds, one purpose. 

The lone creator in their room, and all of us in the same room.

To everyone who’s walked through our doors; the speakers who’ve shared their knowledge freely, the attendees who’ve traveled across the country, the brands who’ve believed in the mission of serving the community, the team members who’ve worked countless hours. You’ve built this. Your ideas inspired our work. Your trust drove us to do better. Your stories reminded us why this matters.

So here’s to what comes next. 

The ones creating fearlessly. 

Here’s to you

MONO is coming.

We can’t wait to share what’s next