Women’s Audio Mission is bringing its WAMCon recording arts conference back to Nashville on October 30, turning Ocean Way Nashville Recording Studios into a full-day playground for aspiring engineers, producers, and other audio professionals. The event will feature hands-on workshops, studio demonstrations, mentorship, and plenty of opportunities to get considerably closer to the gear than most studio visitors ever do.
And the setting is hard to beat. Ocean Way Nashville operates out of a 100-year-old Gothic Revival church on Music Row, with its acoustically impressive sanctuary spaces having been used for everything from major-label records to film and video game scoring. The studio’s history includes work with artists ranging from the late, great Dolly Parton and Taylor Swift to Sheryl Crow and Wynonna Judd.
The 2026 lineup brings some serious studio mileage with it. Two-time GRAMMY-winning producer and engineer Gena Johnson will be there, along with GRAMMY-winning producer and engineer Shani Gandhi, whose credits include Miranda Lambert and Kacey Musgraves. Producer and engineer Leslie Richter, Alicia Keys, and Jack White collaborator Kazuri Arai, and Nashville-based producer/songwriter Alex Hope are also among the featured speakers.
Then there’s the technical side, which is where WAMCon gets particularly interesting. The day's programming will cover vocal production, instrument recording, mixing, vintage Neve console training, and Dolby Atmos, giving attendees a chance to dig into the actual mechanics behind the records rather than just hearing another panel about "breaking into the industry." Dr. Leslie Gaston-Bird, an audio engineer and Dolby Atmos specialist, and Atmos mixer Maddie Harmon are among those leading the charge.
There’s also a live-audio perspective in the mix: Rachael Moser, an audio systems engineer with Clair Global, brings touring and concert-production experience, while Jen Watman has worked as a touring FOH and monitor engineer before moving into technical training and demos with Solid State Logic.
That combination is really the appeal of WAMCon. It isn't confined to one corner of the recording world. You can spend part of the day talking microphones and consoles, then pivot into immersive mixing, touring systems, or the realities of building a career in audio.
And, importantly, this isn't WAM's first rodeo. WAMCon has been running since 2017, with conferences in Nashville, Los Angeles, New York, Boston, and online. The organization says its events have reached thousands of participants, while WAM itself works to address a stubborn imbalance in an industry where women and gender-expansive people remain dramatically underrepresented.
Terri Winston, WAM's founder and executive director, summed up the experience rather enthusiastically:
"WAMCon is my favorite event of the year. To see all of the studio rooms at Ocean Way Nashville filled with GRAMMY-winning engineers and producers and the palpable excitement of 100+ women, engineers, producers and aspiring professionals learning from their audio heroes is such an amazing high. I wish everyday was WAMCon!"
Fair enough. A day spent inside Ocean Way with GRAMMY-winning engineers, vintage consoles, immersive-audio demos, and people who actually make the records you listen to sounds like a pretty solid use of a Friday.
WAMCon Nashville 2026 takes place Friday, October 30, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Ocean Way Nashville Recording Studios in Nashville, Tennessee. The conference is presented by Women’s Audio Mission in partnership with Belmont University and coincides with the Audio Engineering Society's convention in Nashville.
More info and tickets here.
