@Jason why not convert your comments into an answer on @Noah's question? You can take a different direction, think there is room for more than one answer.
@ɥʇǝS Yeah. I moved to NYC with no job and no plan. Also my college buddy convinced me to go to the festival with a bunch of AV nerds based out of NYC. They had some light installation, heard I was a programmer, asked me to make it nice. I did, a few people saw it, and voila, I've been doing freelance work for tech artists ever since.
BM is basically a job fair every year for me since.