After finding out about the promoter’s general performance plans, location, venue, etc.,
the booking agent, normally, contacts the artist’s manger, and acquires the pertinent
information in relation to the promoter’s parameters and interest. This information
is then shared with the promoter who will either accept the terms, or will try to negotiate
possible alternatives. When the two parties agree on the terms of engagement and sign
a contract, the booking agent’s job is usually done, and further details of the performance
are handled by the artist’s management or touring team.
In another scenario, an artist or an artist’s manager, seeking performance opportunities,
may initiate the contact with a booking agent. In that case, after finding out about the
artist schedule, fees, programming, etc., a booking agent would generally attempt to
locate a promoter, or a venue, possibly interested in such artists, and would “shop” the
artist on the live performance market. If an interested promoter or a venue is found,
the process would proceed as in the previous example.
Naturally, since the booking agents’ role is positioned between the performers and the
performance organizers, they may initiate the pairing themselves. Booking agents have
a much better vantage point than either of the parties in question. They know the venues
and the promoters, what they are interested in, what their audiences like and don’t
like, what kind of artists do they normally book and work with, what budgets do they control,
how often do they book, etc.; and at the same time, they also know what artists are actively
performing, in which areas, what repertoires, for what fee, etc. Proper analysis and management
of this information, coupled with proper communication and networking activities, can lead to productive
and mutually beneficial live performance business arrangements initiated by a booking agent.
It is important to recognize first that “agents” and “managers” are not interchangeable
terms, and that these two types of professionals have different spectrums of activities, and
generally perform different roles in the industry. While the agents, as we have seen, are mostly
concerned with pairing artists and concert promoters for live performances, the managers’
business concerns are of much wider scope. An artist’s manager, or as it’s often
referred to - a “personal manager”, is usually charged with the responsibility of
guiding an artist’s career in general, not just finding opportunities for live performances.
As a matter of fact, given the employment and talent agencies regulations and requirements
in many states that we discussed earlier, personal managers are not allowed to procure
employment, because they are not licensed to do so. Other words, personal managers are,
by law, not permitted to book live performances for their artists. That is the role of the
booking agents.
Personal managers guide the careers of the artists with whom they are associated, manage
the artists’ professional affairs, and act on artists’ behalf, presumably in the artists’
best interest, including: negotiating artists’ contracts, accepting or rejecting various
business proposals, managing artists’ schedules, image, repertoire, PR activities, etc. In
the live music industry, personal managers either receive, review, negotiate, and accept
or not, the booking agents’ requests for live performances by their artists; or initiate
the requests for live performances with the booking agents; or both. But they would officially
not be in direct negotiations with live venues or concert promoters, because that would constitute
procurement of employment for which they are not legally authorized.
Of course, there is a fine line between those two activities, between booking a performance,
and finding or creating an opportunity for a performance. Personal managers normally
aim to stay on the side of “finding and creating” those opportunities for their
artists, in order to avoid regulatory problems.
Just like the booking agents and agencies are normally classified by the territory they
cover, the concert promoters are also classified as “national”, “regional”, and “local”.
Naturally, the number of active concert promoters diminishes as the territory widens. Thus,
whereas there are thousands of local concert promoters across the country, organizing small-scale
live performances in their cities and towns, there are only about half-a-dozen major national
concert promoters in the United States, organizing national tours and large-scale concerts. The
national and regional or local promoters often collaborate, when the national’s act is
scheduled for a performance in a regional or local promoters’ territory, as those
promoters are usually much more familiar with the area, and better versed in the regional
and local regulations and services needed for the live performance preparation and execution.
The type of payment that regional and local promoters would receive for such collaboration,
is usually a percentage of the box office net income of the performances in question.
Generally, the concert promoters’ scope of professional concern and activities covers
the full spectrum of live performance organization and execution: from making a deal with an
artist or artists (often collectively referred to as an “act”), marketing, promotion,
and ticket sales, to accounting, sponsorships, and regulatory and technical requirements.
It is a concert promoter who has the most to lose if things don’t work out, but not
the most to gain if all is well. If the tickets do not sell, and sponsorships do not materialize,
