The Local Independent Online News Publishers (LION) will be at a new venue for its annual conference: Music City in Nashville, Tenn<\/strong>. The LION Summit will take place from Thursday through Saturday, October 24 to 26, 2019<\/strong>, with a great lineup of training, panel discussions, breakouts, keynote conversations and the unconference on Saturday afternoon. LION members and non-members in the local news community will participate in dozens of informative sessions aimed at providing both veteran and novice online news publishers with ideas for boosting revenues, deepening community engagement, deploying tools and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With more than 100 new restaurants and bars added in 2017 alone, plus myriad attractions that include the Nashville Studio Tour and the Frist Art Museum-it’s no wonder that Nashville was named “The Hottest Travel Destination of 2018.” Attendees at the LION Summit will get to enjoy all that Nashville has to offer, including two receptions out on the town during the Summit.<\/p>\n\n We have three days of great programming lined up for the Summit! On Thursday, we’ll have a full day of workshops and training, covering everything from Instagram to Google Analytics to newsletters and photography. Pick and choose what fits for your organization in our three tracks of training: Content, Business and Marketing. On Friday, we will have a series of panels and speakers, highlighted by our keynote Elizabeth Green<\/strong> of the American Journalism Project and Chalkbeat, panels on collaboration and texting the news, and a special reception and first ever LION Awards Show<\/strong>.\u00a0 On Saturday, we’ll have our second keynote Roxann Stafford<\/strong> of the Knight-Lenfest Local News Transformation Fund, along with the popular “30 Ideas in 30 Minutes” session and the “unconference” where you get to choose the topics to discuss.<\/p>\n\n\n For the first time, we’ve added a new LION Publishers Awards to our program, to recognize excellence in journalism, business and technology at local independent online news publishers. Here is our list of finalists<\/a>. Winners will be honored at the LION Awards Show at the Summit on Friday evening. Note that you will need to buy a $30 ticket to attend the LION Awards Show dinner and reception on Friday night.<\/p>\n\n\n We have reserved three hotel blocks near the conference venue for your convenience – and with discounted rates. Make sure to reserve your hotel fast to make sure you can join our blocks, especially with a home Tennessee Titans game taking place the same weekend. We also have an area map and information on getting to the venue to enjoy the Summit.<\/p>\n\n\n Thanks to the generous support of the\u00a0Democracy Fund<\/strong>, LION Publishers will be offering travel stipends from $250 to $500 to help our publisher members or prospective members attend the upcoming LION Summit in Nashville on October 24-25, 2019. These stipends will help cover the cost of air fare, hotel and\/or gasoline costs for travel to the Summit. You will need to book your travel, and LION Publishers will reimburse part of the costs. The deadline to apply is August 16, 2019<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\nRegister now!<\/strong><\/h3>\n