What do booking agents do

They often schedule performances and negotiate with the artists directly or with booking representatives or producers to arrange terms of contract, dates, and fees. They may also audition new talent. Artist Bookers or Booking Agents may either be employed in-house or work independently.

They may specialize in independent bookings in a particular musical genre such as cabaret, chamber music or rock or pop music. An Artist Booker or Booking Agent may even sponsor, manage and produce the whole event. A Booking Agent is responsible for booking live performances including concerts, gigs, tours and radio and TV performances for artists, bands, DJs, choirs, orchestras and other musical ensembles. They are responsible for developing the musicians' or artists' career with regard to their live performance.

A Booking Agent, or Artist Booker, will work closely with the artists' management, promoter and record company. A special license is needed to work as a booking agent in almost half of all the states in the US. New York and California have some of the strictest regulations for booking agents. Each professional band or artist starts from scratch in their music careers.

You, as one of them, have probably tried or started booking your own shows and gigs to widen your music portfolio and showcase your talents. But there will come a time that hiring a booking agent is necessary for your professional growth as a musician. So, how do you know if you need one? Assess yourself through the following questions:. We previously mentioned that booking agents frequently attend live gigs and shows, actively searching for new artists to take under them.

Now, think of having a sloppy live performance while a booking agent is unknowingly watching you. Agents love musicians who are amazing performers and are clearly passionate about their musicality. Some artists only treat their music careers as a hobby or a side gig. Still, others claiming they want to launch a serious music career rely on pure luck to land that big break that will catapult them into stardom.

Such kinds of mindsets are instant turn-offs for booking agents. Also, becoming a famous musician without getting really serious and putting in hard work is almost tantamount to cheating yourself and other artists as well. Are you ready for larger gigs and music tours? Are you open to becoming a full-fledged professional musician right now?

Lots of professional music careers have been successfully launched through the help of booking agents. A determined musician paired with a good agent will surely result in a great music career in the long run. Even the most serious and skilled start-up musician finds himself experiencing gig scarcity at some point in his early music career.

Booking agents have connections to concert promoters and live show coordinators. They will surely help you ramp up the number of gigs you can play in. Some booking agents take musicians with a considerable number of shows under their belt.

The good news is that plenty of agents prefer quality over quantity. Establishing good connections with a booking agent has lots of advantages for your music career:. Searching for jobs and show opportunities is a time-consuming and tiring venture. As a musician, it can even distract you from making quality music overtime.

Having a booking agent to help you frees you from the burden of job-searching and lets you focus on perfecting your music instead.

After all, you need to concentrate on continuously improving your musical talents as a professional musician or band. Music Business, Music Management, Communications and Marketing are all useful majors that can help prepare you for a career in the entertainment industry. These courses teach you useful skills about the entertainment industry and can allow you to specialize in what area of the industry you plan to work in.

Some booking agents may work across different areas, taking on clients including musicians and comedians. Other agents choose to work strictly with one group. If you want to become a booking agent for musicians, it is important to understand how the music industry works.

Courses in music business and management can help you understand how to communicate in this field and what protocols to account for. Many booking agents begin their career in an entry-level position at a talent agency. This may involve working as in intern, an assistant or in another similar role. It is not common for someone to become a booking agent without gaining some experience in the industry first, so these entry-level jobs can be a great way to enter the industry.

In these positions you learn from professionals about how the industry works and you can also begin to build a network. Having a network within the industry is essential to becoming a booking agent because it provides you with more opportunities to connect your clients with.

Agencies often require booking agents to have pre-existing industry connections when hiring, and this is something they may ask about during an interview.

Having a solid network is also important if you want to open your own agency, because clients will inquire about your connections when deciding who to work with. Although the idea of working with a huge client and planning a nationwide tour is exciting, you should plan to begin your career as a booking agent by taking on lesser-known artists and scheduling shows locally. Working with a small artist allows you to prove your skills in the industry as you begin.

To endlessly sell and receive NO for an answer most of the time — and to get right back up and keep on selling. To be critical to the outside world — filtering out the nonsense and telling people how it is.

With tact. Artist-manager relationships become very personal over time. The best managers are involved artistically, helping curate and develop the musical content and branding.

These things concern creative ideas, which are very personal in nature. I can be critical about certain things to my artists, because they respect my opinions on those matters. Managers that start working with an artist in the early stages of their career are often business-oriented friends or want-to-be industry professionals, that take on the job because of a belief in the music.

In the early stages the manager is often also the booking agent. These are the individual managers. In the higher tiers, managers work for agencies and sometimes for record labels. They tend to have bigger networks and more resources, but are more selective about the artists they work with. As a rule of thumb, you should assume that the higher up the chain you go, the more people will preselect for artists that are already making waves independently.

Also, managers at big agencies tend to have more artists on their roster, resulting in less time spent on each individual act. For the really rich musicians, management can be split up into music management and business management. The prior is all that we have just discussed, whereas business management takes a more financial spin. These managers concern themselves with asset and capital management, do investments for their clients, find tax and administrative loopholes.

There is something to be said for both the stand-alone managers as for the agencies. My experience has taught me to never work with people where the artist is not among their top priorities. Be watchful of the people that sign artists like notches, to hedge their risk in the hope that one of them will break through. This is a procedure that sometimes extends to the honeymoon period of more serious artist — manager relationships.

This is the trial period before an actual contract commences. Most managers will take this cut off gross revenue, meaning all revenues without any deduction of costs. The term for these agreements range from years, the latter being most common. I view management as a long-term investment so will always try to sign artists for a three-year term. Managers also hedge against the risk of creating success for an artist and then being abandoned, by so-called Sunset clauses.

These entitle the manager to a certain percentage commission, diminishing per year, for a period after the agreement with an act ends. Established artists have more clout in new contract negotiations, as the managers have contributed less to their development. And in those cases the manager also stands to gain esteem by working with the act. This entails securing and arranging performances, negotiating deals, arranging proper technical set-ups for shows, and in many cases also securing hospitality hotels, dinners , logistics travel, flights and promotional efforts.