Booking Gigs & Tours - Tips From An Artist and Talent Buyer

Justin Paul live at the MusicBox Theater Hollywood, CA

Article from prosperipress.com

What does a talent buyer do?

They book or purchase music talent for a specific club, concert venue, event series, or festival. More senior talent buyers book talent for a group of venues—for example, AEG or Live Nation-owned venues in a big city or geographic region.

They connect with agents, artists, and managers and make the best sound business decision possible for that venue's audience and demographic. That could be a band, DJ, rap, or solo artist.

Trends

• Venues have become multi-genre.

• Goal: sell-out venue/event

• Pre-COVID: 70 to 80% tickets sold = break-even point (due to massive expenses)

What does a talent buyer look for?

First and foremost, how many tickets they believe (based on data) can an artist sell. The more tickets an artist can sell, the higher the performance fee they will command.

Sometimes talent buyers are tastemakers, and they take a chance on an up and coming artist/band. Typically those are opening acts or the middle of the lineup. The up and coming artists may even play for free or a smaller amount. They are often more suited for club events.

What is the best way for a musician to attract a talent buyer?

Tickets sales (reported to Pollstar), number of music streams on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, YouTube, and SoundCloud. Plus local, national, and international press coverage, social media engagement and authentic followers, and from their own experience seeing/hearing the artist live. Talent buyers keep an eye out for fake followers and streams that some artists may pay to boost their numbers.

Being one's own promoter is the best way to get booked for shows. Hosting private events and advertising them on social media sells a lot of tickets. Talent buyers on the local and regional level look for self-promotion. Once an artist has a significant following, talent buyers look to see if an artist will sell out nationally. The charisma of the artist and the show they produce are often put into consideration.

How has your unique perspective as a talent buyer benefited your career as a musician?

Being a talent buyer allows one to grow in a level of professionalism. At the beginning of an artist's career, most musicians are their own managers and agents. Recognizing the level of professionalism an artist has is incredibly important in selling oneself.

It helped me to understand ticket sales data, specifically from Pollstar. I started to reverse engineer the contact information of other talent buyers. I started to look at music through a different lens.

What is it like being on the giving and receiving end as both an artist and talent buyer?

• Being able to turn the world onto new talent

• Host or co-host events to help sponsor new artists

• I love being able to give artists a chance I didn't have when I was starting my career

What is the best way musicians can get themselves in front of the right eyes?

Get out there and play as much as possible and touch lives. Get people excited about what you're doing because the most authentic form of marketing is word of mouth. Once an artist plays a lot, they become better at music and build a community. Out of that community, connections could help the artist get in touch with venues, lighting designers, and other creatives.