How Networking in the Entertainment Industry Has Changed (And What to Do About It)

May 29

Intentional community-building has replaced organic on-set connection, and creatives can adapt this summer.

For as long as there's been an entertainment industry, there's been networking. Creatives would work together, connect over a shared passion or project, and build relationships across late nights and months of on-set camaraderie. Colleagues became advocates. Advocates became career-long relationships. Nobody called it networking. It just happened.

Then the pandemic reshaped how productions run. Smaller crews, hybrid schedules, and remote options became the norm. And without the built-in, organic connection that on-set work once provided, something that used to happen automatically now had to happen on purpose.

It used to happen organically. Now it has to happen intentionally.

Why did networking in Hollywood change?

The on-set environment created a natural structure for connection: long hours, plenty of work, many late nights and early mornings. When that structure became inconsistent, the relationships that grew out of it became harder to form without effort.

What didn't change is the underlying behavior.

If you've worked in the industry, you've already networked, and probably without realizing it. You've made friendships, vouched for someone, been vouched for, or introduced two people because you knew they should know each other. That's all networking ever was.

The discomfort creatives feel now isn't about connection itself. It's about having to seek it out rather than stumble into it.

How are entertainment industry creatives networking now?

The options are broader than most people realize. The most effective approaches fall into three categories:

Online communities: Industry-specific Facebook groups, Discord servers, and LinkedIn circles keep you visible and connected between jobs.
In-person events: Screenings, panels, and mixers offer the energy that's hard to replicate remotely, and tend to draw people who are genuinely invested in the craft. Cross-craft events especially create the kind of unexpected connections that on-set work used to generate naturally.
Personal follow-through: Checking in with colleagues, friends, and contacts occasionally with a DM, a voice note, or a coffee goes further than most people expect.

What does intentional networking actually look like?

It looks like what you were already doing, but with a little more awareness.

Show up to the rooms where your industry gathers. Be curious about people's work. Make introductions. Keep in touch.

The difference is that you're choosing to do it outside of a set, without the structure of production giving you a reason to be in the same room as someone.

What networking events are coming up this summer?

Our team at Impact24 PR is building out a full summer of networking events across LA, New York, and Canada that are designed to spark exactly the kind of cross-craft, in-person connection that the industry has always run on.

The bottom line

Networking in the entertainment industry hasn't become something new. It's become something conscious. The connection that used to happen automatically on set now requires a small amount of intention: showing up to the right rooms, staying in touch between projects, and building community the way you always have, just outside the built-in structure of production.

The creatives building strong networks right now aren't doing anything different from what the industry has always rewarded. They're just doing it on purpose.

Jocelyne Roman